I have been involved with computers since the early 1970's, my first computer encounter being with the Elliott 803.
By today's standards this had very limited capabilities and was extremely slow. But it was my first stepping stone into computing, allowed me to learn the Algol programming language, and taught me a lot about computer programming in raw machine code. It holds a very special place in my memory.
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Another very important computer to me was the IBM 1620. It played a major role in enhancing the usablity of the old Elliott 803, and also gave me the opportunity to learn the Fortran programming language.
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These old computers were eventually replaced by minicomputers that were making rapid inroads into engineering computing. Before long I was working with DEC PDP8-E, Computer Automation Alpha-16 and Texas Instruments 980A.