The first computer I ever used in a paying job, in 1979, was the IBM 5110, which I wrote about here:
Before then I programmed with PL/1 and FORTRAN on an IBM System/360 mainframe, using stacks of punched cards created with this card punch machine:
At about the same time, I programmed with APL on a terminal (with monochrome monitor and dot-matrix printer) that was networked to the S/360 via IBM’s Time Sharing Option:
Even earlier, in 1975, I learned the fundamentals of programming with an HP-65 calculator (my father’s) and an HP-55 calculator (my own):
Jumping forward in time, the first computer I ever owned myself was the Olivetti M24, introduced in 1983:
I saved up my money to buy, a few months later, the Display Enhancement Board, which was extremely expensive:
Olivetti also sold a graphics enhancement board called the DEB - Display Enhancement Board. This provided up to 640 x 400 in 16 colours. Because the DEB was a separate board with its own output, you could run two monitors: a colour and a monochrome, side by side.
