It was me, I believe, in late 2007. That was the Angle-ISO mod and I think I called it Angle quite early on but it was first mundanely called the "bottom half-row shift". Farkas Máté calls it the "comfort ergo" mod in PKL (2008). When I came up with it, Shai said that he considered making it an official default for ISO boards. But somehow he didn't.

So by the time that "well known" post (which I must confess I had entirely forgotten) was written in 2012, the Angle ergo mod had been around for four years or so. But it far from predates Colemak, which was released in its finished form in 2006 (I came across it early 2007).

The ANSI-Angle mod I don't quite remember but I suspect that Cevgar may have had a hand in it, and me.

Cevgar came up with the Wide mod as I recall it, although others have since had the same idea independently. Cevgar has a wonderfully inquisitive and creative mind. I love some of his ideas, like the ghetto foot switch. Others are just weird but kudos to him for thinking them up and trying them out! He even tried turning the keyboard upside down.

I made Extend as we know it in 2008, working from Fn key layouts and common sense. I implemented it myself with AHK until PKL came and rendered my implementation lacking by comparison. It's a matter of definition what constitutes Extend though, but for me it includes the ability to combo with easily reachable modifiers in addition to the nav/edit/etc keys.

Colemak[eD] mappings are mine with very few (if any?) exceptions. I've been working on them since 2011.

The Colemak[eD] dead key mappings are part mine, part taken from the Bépo Project. Those guys have made a great contribution to the dead key ecosystem. :-)

Tarmak was my brainchild, but the current version of it was made with the great help of several others including Cevgar and Karl Nordstrom.

In my Big Bag posts, I've included some bits of history here and there should you be interested in knowing more. :-)

It's quite possible that someone, somewhere thought of something like it. But let's face it, if you don't publish your ideas and have a clear path to their implementation, the outcome is the same as if no one had ever thought of it. That's why so-called "intellectual property" is such tricky business and there is so much money involved in it.

I think that intellectual property as the term is commonly used is a very broken and even harmful concept, but that's another topic altogether.

Hey, if I were making bank from slapping a letter on someone's brand name, giving arbitrary interpretations on something no one really understands, and getting paid for cases that would eventually be settled out of court anyway, I'd be happy as a clam too. :P

Remind me to fill some balloons with ink, tape them to a canvas, and toss darts at it this evening. I've been needing some extra cash.

I had such ideas of following standards at first, thinking that if I will use standard fingering it will help me somehow. But then I thought that In the eyes of qwerty users we are  all rebels just  because we moved alphas around, and it is no matter after that what we will use for inputting data, standard keyboard, non-standard keyboard, or crystal ball.
After realizing that, I stopped worrying, retire my standard keyboards, and departured in the land of alternative keyboards, where keys are moved to the fingers, not fingers to the keys. I'm using them everywhere now, including laptop.

We are the music makers
And we are the dreamers of dreams.
~ Arthur O'Shaughnessy

I have the standard keyboard by my desk which I pull out when "normies" need to use my computer. But I also need to pull out a mouse, because I'm using trackball :)
Regarding "bringing a personal knife", this is exactly what I'm doing. What is wrong with that? Say if technician coming to your house, he is bringing his own screwdriver but not using yours one, why when it comes to computers, we suppose it always should be used with attached periphery?
And for poor Windows users switching to Colemak is not "just flipping a switch" and will not be that in observable future.

And frankly, I don't know that I would think much of a chef that doesn't have preferences and doesn't keep their own preferred equipment in good repair. I would marvel at one who has developed their skills to perfection and always has a knife with the right weighting and size for them, a razor-sharp blade, and of a quality that will amplify their abilities.

I guess I'm saying that, when you learn and grow with the layout and equipment best suited to you, you're far more likely to get your desired results.

It is an unskilled worker who blames his tools, but a highly skilled worker who maximizes them.

Believe me, I'm working in a place that packages meat, so you can think how good the industry keyboards there is, in addition to having to be watertight, they are usually smudget with a thick layer of fat, blood and meat rests, after trying to work on those keyboards for a while almost anything is a blessing.

Nono, mostly it's just small stuff when I'm there, mostly just pinging a server or change a printer or something, but as often as I can I'm doing it with vnc, then I don't have to change into the whole hygiene clothing and stuff as well, so luckily it's not that often ;)