I'm concerned as to just how ergonomic "vertical chords" are.  That's the same reason I never really pursued plover on the keyboard.

Also, instead of going for rare letters like "z" (in english, anyway), chords really ought to correspond to common words that we can type right away, as well as special characters that we want to use often.  It's a little concerning whether this would just end up reimplementing an ad hoc, informally specified, bug-ridden stenotype in the long term.

As for implementation, you might very well start with plover as a base.  Or maybe it's much easier than I'm thinking and that would just be overkill.

Best not admit any inspiration from ASETNIOP, since it's patent-encumbered and that could be used to bite the project in the far future.   Chorded keys are hardly ASETNIOP's original idea in either case - the stenotype itself uses those.

In my experience (those rare times I use windows) AHK hasn't really been responsive enough for normal typing.  I wonder if a mere dictionary config for plover would be enough, or if the default keys are hardcoded in.

Even if vertical chords "aren't so bad" (which I would still take issue with), they are still worse than the other chords since they are one-finger.  Fortunately, because your spec has many duplicate functions, there is plenty of room to fit an alternative in.  The most obvious one is probably to make [qwerty] v/n into "modifiers" for the other hand, so for example:

nf -> v
ns -> x

and for the other hand,

vl -> .
vj -> m

This would simply replace your backspace specification for those keys.

I think much of your specification has too low a work/reward ratio, however.  Sure, it's cool to be able to aim at far-away letters, but this is mostly superfluous in actual typing.  Rather, we should pick off the low-hanging fruit and just get a solution that's "good enough", leaving us room to implement possibly other additions.  Here's one suggestion:

Lowest hanging fruit: bottom row, as described above.  ru, or gh are also possible "alternative bottom-row modifiers" to vn.

Next-lowest hanging: the tygh square.  Those can be hit by horizontal er,ui,df,jk respectively.

Next-lowest hanging: The qp corners.  Those can be hit by we and io, respectively.

And that's it for the letter modifiers.  r/u, while tempting to chord, are probably not difficult enough to try and do so.

The good news: removing so many letter chords has left us with plenty to go for the non-letters.  Because ef is no longer targeted toward b, it can now be targeted outward toward 2/@.  So upward would be the new diagonal chord targets.  A similar outward targeting gives us l; -> ', ;k -> ret.  Unfortunately, the right side is quite crowded so some chords for the []\+-backsapce symbols might have to be ad hoc, but you can't have everything.

So up to this point, letters, numbers and symbols have been implemented as 2-key, same-hand chords (3 counting space).  The 3-key, different hand chords can now be used for modified keys (ctrl, alt, altgr).  And/or for starting to implement a dictionary.  And/or as something similar to Dreymar's extend layers (e.g. f+ijkl as the arrow keys), which would probably be my preference.

I didn't realize half-qwerty was an actual thing.  I'm not sure there is a safe way that a lawyer couldn't turn against you, so I would just refrain entirely.  Remember, even if (and that's a big if) the original guy is cool, patents can be sold (cough oracle, SCO, patent trolls in general).

Low hanging fruit.  D is already on the home row, don't need an additional chord for it.  Sure, any additional option technically improves the keyboard, but in this case it's probably not worth it.  In my rationale, I consider asdfwer jkl;uio to be "easily enough" hit from the home row, with r and u as edge-cases.

             
Not if you buy the workman argument: the hands' natural curl makes those two (and only those two, with b being a bit of a stretch) bottom-row keys easy to hit.  Even if they aren't used as "bottom row modifiers", they are still good enough to try to find another use.

True, but wasteful.  That would not allow implementation of a second modifier layer, like (some finger on the other hand)+ijkl for arrow keys, which would be much more useful than having an alternate way to hit r.  The main goal of my reductionist spec was to give additional space for such things.

I would start the larger chords with one less distance, so wr -> q.  Though, I don't think it beats my original we -> q, since the index finger has some trouble reaching up.

Aside from the caveats above, seems ok to me.

Ideally, this program would be configurable enough that no one would have to compromise.  Meh.

@lalop

Point, E and D are on the same finger, and also a very common digraph. As such, AS=D is awesome.

I only buy the Workman argument that the home row of the center column is worse than we give it credit for. Workman also believes W is easier than R. That alone is enough to make the whole idea suspect.

Using the opposite hand as a separate modifier layer is interesting, but you could just as easily break it down. Pointers for reversal, middle for modifiers, ring for navigation, whatever. The arrow keys probably wouldn't work so well with the current keystrike on release idea. As you say, the chords work-to-result ratio is backwards, so hitting the left or right arrow chord and the opposite hand modifier a dozen times would be significantly worse than just going over to the arrow keys. Chording Home, End, PageUp, PageDn, and a slew of Ctrl Alt combos, would be worth it, but again, memorization.

Your index finger has trouble reaching up? Well T and R must really suck for you. Really I put this one down to practice. I have a much easier time hitting A than I do ; and it is effectively the same key.

Thinking more, I'm wondering if the adjacent diagonals shouldn't go down and the seperated diagonals go up. I like the adjacent diagonals going up because it is easer to keep the numbers in order, but it requires a [; chord for =.

@pinkyache

Ooh, The Chorded Transposer. Brilliant! It is official, if I ever get around to doing this, I'm calling it The Chorded Transposer. Or a variation there of. Perfect description and doesn't sound too shabby either. (and will hopefully disabuse people of the notion that it means remember thousands of chords for two letter words)

Well, the concept isn't really sliding fingers, but hitting both the top and middle row key, with the same finger, at the same time. It starts out pretty horrible, but with practice (and the right keyboard) it gets better. I've only been playing with Plover for about a week now, and I don't think much of it anymore.

lalop had an issue with this as well, and proposed using the V and N keys as substitutes for vertical chording. You can read up on it above.

The examples in the OP were pretty overkill. They took some thinking to find chords that would avoid same finger. Still, some of the more common, or more useful chords would be easy enough to adopt. For Qwerty the ER=T, JK=H and AS=D would probably be memorized even before the bottom row chords. Except for whatever we end up using for B, Enter or Backspace. (Again, we are tossing around ideas, see the last paragraph of my last post)

Either way, as I said, it really is a no pressure option. I figure maybe you start typing and use a few chords, then get into what you are writing and go back to typing normally. And you know what? No harm done. Someone else uses your computer while the Chorded Transposer is running, and they never even notice.

You summed up the problem with chording nicely. It sounds great in theory, but then you get into it and... it kinda isn't. Chorded keystrokes are always slower than a single keystrokes. Then there doesn't seem to be much point to use a two key chord to write a two letter digraph when you can just hit both letters at the same time and have autocorrect sort it out for you. So you ramp it up to trigraphs, but there you find a rapid drop in frequency, so you... etc.

In the end you just need to come to terms with what the advantages are, and most importantly what they aren't. Yes, steno uses chords, and yes steno is mind mindbogglingly fast. But steno is A) a phonetic shorthand system. Often with several ways to spell the same word. And B) can require up to 16 keys pressed per keystroke.

Let me repeat that, UP TO 16 KEYS PER KEYSTROKE.

I haven't seen the 16 keyer myself, but the Plover online demo page has the example of 'gauge'. In steno 'gauge' takes 11 keys. On the left hand (beginning of the word) the ring and middle finger hit TKPW as a chord to form G, the left thumb hits A while the right thumb hits EU to make a chord for a long A, and the right hand hits (again with the middle and ring fingers) PBLG for J. End result is 'TKPW  A  EU  PBLG' which is read GAJ and is then translated to english by the computer. The qwerty translation of this monstrosity is 'WSED C NM IKOL'. All at once.

Pretty scary, eh? So why do it? While there are a lot more keys PRESSED, there are drastically fewer keySTROKES. Since each steno entry appears as its own line, there is no need for a space (or need to delete a space if you choose to add punctuation, the computer handles it). Gauge, as it comes out of a steno machine, is the equivalent of six characters in Qwerty. That is six characters that all have to be hit in sequence, where the steno typist only has to hit one.

So, yes, the chords take longer than a single character stroke, but in this instance the steno typist can take six times as long to complete a single keystroke and still match a qwerty typist in speed.

And THAT is the advantage of steno. Heck that isn't even including briefs

As and aside, words per minute is calculated based on an average word length of five characters, so that speed advantage is more the norm than the exception. Conversly that gives us a way to judge equivalent qwerty typing speeds. The world record for steno is (as far as I know) 360 WPM. Lets simplify and say there is one stroke per word. That gives us 360 keystrokes per minute. Divide by average word length, call it six characters (including space) which will give us our Qwerty equivalent. The worlds fastest stenographer is hitting chords at a rate equivalant to a Qwerty typist hitting keys at 60 wpm. Court reporters need something like 250 WPM, which is chording at something like the speed of a 40 WPM Qwerty Typist.

Ok, now back on topic.

I've played with Dasher, but only the mouse version. While undeniably awesome, and fun, if I've got a cat on my lap and can't reach the keyboard I'll probably go for a plain old on screen keyboard. A Dasher with two cursors, controlled perhaps by something like a XBox game pad, would blow my mind. Or perhaps this could be tied in to your one handed idea. Dasher for typing and off hand on the keyboard for modifiers.

On typing syllables, that is more or less what Steno is. The left hand hits the beginning sound, thumbs handle the vowels, right hand handles the ending. Unfortunately, English isn't really phoentic. There are something like 40 sounds in the English language, but only 26 characters. There for we have words like 'ought' which only has two sounds but is spelled with five letters. This is the principal behind many phonetically based hand written shorthand systems.

I don't know about Korean, but I belive Japanese Kana are mostly phonetic syllable system. That is 48 characters. Interestingly enough, it would only require something like 15 keys as, broken down, there are five vowels and only nine consonants, and syllables are always consonant-vowel. Unfortuantly, you still need to learn the Kanji, which, from what I understand, 3,000 characters need to be known in order to meet 'basic' literary requirements. Ouch.

I doubt I could even strike two keys at the same time with one finger.  You need fat fingers for this or a touch screen or something.   You'll just need to write the paper now, a proposed title for you: Chord keyboard layout transposal for the fat fingered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv1w9bg3bMM

@davkol: *snort* Believe what you like.

@pinkyache: I can chord two adjacent keys with a pencils eraser end on most keyboards. Are your finger tips smaller than a pencil's eraser? I never said comfortable, I just said not THAT bad.

@lalop: Never mind about the =. It occurred to me that it would be covered with the V number row drop and a UP chord.

(Would be great to colate all these input methods - and variants - somewhere.)