The first contact I had with computers was a huge mainframe which they have on the polytechnical school I studied (1976). You had to type in your programs on a terminal ( in basic!) which had no monitor, but looked like a kind of typewriter, a day later you could get your results if you were lucky enough, if you've made a mistake you had to type your program all over again. The mighty machine was in the basement of the school and had the size of a whole classroom. Six years later I bought my first SInclair ZX-spectrum with 48k Memory and 4MHz processor. This computer did the same programs I made on school within 5 minutes ( the ZX did have shortkeys  for all the basic commando's) I've had many computers after that first one (I actually bought three ZX-spectrums, they were a little bit fragile) but there's some things I've learned:
    -Don't be surprised! (in the good or bad way)
    -Never expect anything!
    -It will always be better!
    -It will always get worse!
    -It will never stop!
    -Don't buy more than you can afford!
    -Get some sleep!

Although I know I'm still violating my own rules, 25 years ago it was the ZX-spectrum which keep me awake untill five in the morning, nowadays it's Poser or Vue or Rhino or just strolling the Internet ( not so often but it happens) Hardware is less important than software today. Sir Sinclair lost the ratrace for the best computer but he has made a cheap computer (Poser7 is more expensive than the  ZX-spectrum) which made millions of people enthousiast.

-How can you improve things when you don't make mistakes?