The first programmable device I had was a Texas TI-55 calculator. "Programmable" is a stretch, but it was "automatable". It had no conditional branching and the only unconditional jump it could make was for step 0 of the program. Still, I managed to make it solve 2nd degree equations within its 50 or so available steps. It took me a while to do it because the number of steps available was insufficient and I had to invert a sign and jump to 0 in order to give the second result. This was early 80's.
From then, I was hooked. I briefly had a Sinclair ZX-81 clone (all Brazilian computers were clones back then), and quickly moved to a very nice Apple II+ clone with a "programmable" keyboard.
I had some contact with mainframes - an IBM 4341 - and some Unix in college, but it wasn't until 2004 or so that I decided to move my main desktop to Linux. Linux has been my daily driver since then (even though my corporate-issue computers have been Macs for quite some time).
From then, I was hooked. I briefly had a Sinclair ZX-81 clone (all Brazilian computers were clones back then), and quickly moved to a very nice Apple II+ clone with a "programmable" keyboard.
I had some contact with mainframes - an IBM 4341 - and some Unix in college, but it wasn't until 2004 or so that I decided to move my main desktop to Linux. Linux has been my daily driver since then (even though my corporate-issue computers have been Macs for quite some time).