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I got selected to learn programming in 4th grade on an Apple II+ by my elementary school teacher. (1982-83) Our district got enough machines to put a half dozen in each school but there was no formal curriculum at the time so it was all pretty unofficial and ad-hoc. When I got to high school in 87, our computer teacher was awarded one of IBM's first Teacher of the year awards for his program "reach out and byte someone" (1988) which taught students how to use dial-up resources like CompuServe to help with research projects. Big Blue donated an entire lab full of PS2's networked to a server all running Netware. It was amazing at the time and really put some fire to the districts' computer cirriculum. I started learning Pascal on that network in '89. Gave me a big leg-up when I got to college.
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/ravi
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AutoCoder and RPG no less!
Gus Gustafson
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The first was a main frame using Fortran and input via punch cards.
I will leave this off the list as whilst it was my first dev machine, it wasn't owned by me.
ZX81[^],
Spectravideo[^],
A Sony modular Computer?,
TRS-80 Model 4 with 128k memory[^]
Then
IBM PC, 286, 386, 486, P3, P4, i7.
Looks like that picture of an ape changing into a man.
"Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read." Frank Zappa 1980
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C64 in late 1982.
Used Basic and ASM.
Later got GEOS and played some C on top of it...
I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is (V).
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1981 :: NASCOM 2 kit :: Z80, 2kB RAM, 2kB ROM, 8kB NAS BASIC, about 100 TTL chips on a 12x8 inch motherboard, all socketed, all hand soldered. Took about 3 months to build. Added some extensions like a 64kB DRAM board and a home designed programmable character generator.
There was a Z80 assembler on tape which is what I used for most developments.
I had a video monitor and I do recall having to hack the flyback circuitry to get a stable image. Not for the faint-hearted...
Those were the days, when developers had to know how to solve clock skew introduced by 6 inches of ribbon cable (solution: cut 3 inches out).
Now, I can't even distinguish two adjacent pins on a surface mounted chip.
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For real work, it was one of these bad boys[^], running the Dataflex 3GL.
For my first computing and program experience, I bout a ZX81[^] kit and got out my soldering iron.
=========================================================
I'm an optoholic - my glass is always half full of vodka.
=========================================================
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Professionally it was a TI-990 mini computer
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BBC Master Compact, with a naff green screen that made the world look like it had raster lines if you used it for too long...
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Basic on Sinclair ZX-81 in 1982 (it was released a year late).
IK of Ram. Later bought a 16K dongle that kept falling off and losing my work.
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My first professional computer, that I actually got paid to program for, was an HP 1000[^] minicomputer in 1980. I also programmed on an Intel Intellec MDS-80[^] in that same time period.
In 1984 I did a lot of programming on a Zenith Z-100, a predecessor of your 120.
Software Zen: delete this;
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1980, Heathkit 3400 Microprocessor Trainer like this one [^]. Soon the Tandy Color computer would be released - with a Motorola MC68B09E microprocessor beating inside it - only natural I would graduate from the 6800 in the Heathkit to writing code for the CPU in the CoCo 
-- RP
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Kevin Marois wrote: I taught myself GW-Basic on this Zenith 120[^] back in 1985 while in the Marine Corps.
Wow, that takes me back. That was my second professional computer, in the same circumstances as yours, only a year later than you. 
I learned BASIC on a PDP 8 or 11 (I can't remember which) in High School in the late 70s. The first one of my own was an Atari 800; more BASIC. The first professional programming was in COBOL on whatever the Marine Corps was using in Quantico at the time, I think it was the 370, but I couldn't tell you for sure.
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A TI-994A. With a tape recorded for storage... we were never rich enough to shell out for a disk drive. I remember my dad asking if I wanted to get an Atari at Christmas or the TI now... I'm a kid, of course I want it NOW.
So while I never got to play the same cool games that all of my friends had (since EVERYONE else had an Atari), it did give me my first introduction to a real computer. After introducing me to programming, I then continued on with the various TI magazines (can't remember the name of any of them off-hand) and learned a lot about line-code programming.
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Same here on the TI-994a. I still have it, though I haven't started it in over 20 years. When I was in high school, I used to write little programs to do all my math homework. I also spent many hours playing the Scott Adams Adventure games. 
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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I think that may have been the same one that my Dad had. I remember being blown away by the graphics demo on it (which essentially showed amazing things equivalent to 1990's Windows screen-savers). He had it hooked up a heathkit power-bar kit. My first was a TI-994A right around the same time frame - I was in grade 3 at the time. I eventually moved on to C64.
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I taught myself Assembly Language on an IBM 7040 in 1968 or 1969 by reading the code output of the FORTRAN compiler.
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Wow, this brings back fond memories. My first development machine was a Commodore Vic 20. I wrote a product pricing program on it for the first company I worked for back in the early 1980's. The proof of concept was well received. The company purchased an IBM PC with PFS File and word processing and my IT career was launched.
And yes, the Vic 20 was hooked up to a black and white TV and had a tape recorder for a storage device. Man those were the days!
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The very first, circa 1964 - 1970, was an IBM 360 with Assembler and Fortran IV.
In the PC world, circa 1980 - 1982, it was an IBM PC with dual floppies and 64K RAM using GW-BASIC. Soon after I switched to Borland Turbo Pascal.
Those systems were so limited even when compared to an Android Tablet today.
"Courtesy is the product of a mature, disciplined mind ... ridicule is lack of the same - DPM"
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Wow! All the responses makes me feel really young, my first development computer (the one ever I did something that could be considered development) was a 386 computer owned by my school (don't rememeber brand) that ran the glorious MS-DOS (unknown version), on it I developed some programs on Logo and stored them on these big 5 1/2 floppy disks. Making the turtle move and draw was amazing back then.
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My initial development experiences were with BASIC first,then assembly on a TRS-80 Model 1, complete with 4K of RAM and tape cassette storage. It was a great day when my dad finally buckled under pressure and sprung for the 48K expansion interface.
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