Comment ICL 1900 (Score 1) 230
Once compiled and stored, you could book your half-hour per day on the teletype! We did hear stories about terminals, but we didn't have any. This was the time you could do your daily compile, and then wait for the compilation listing to come back.
I've still got a few of the punched cards, along with the flow-chart template. They live at work and I bring them out occasionally to show the young 'uns.
By the early 80s I was on a team working with one of our first mini-computers (a Perkin Elmer). This lived in it's own air-conditioned room, with a large wardrobe-height CPU unit, an equally bit tape unit, and two massive removable disk drive units - big both physically (desk height) and in capacity (300 Mb each!). Input was via a terminal (so no more punched cards). Also, enough terminals for all us programmers ('programmers', not 'developers'). Again in COBOL.
One final part, I got an email circa 2003 to say that the first program I ever wrote, in 1979, had just doe it's final run (system EOL). 20 something years - not bad (although how much of my original code was left is anyone's guess).
One interesting technology that came and went was graph plotters. You could get desktop versions of these connected to early IBM PCs. They were fascinating to watch. Replaced by ink-jets and laser printers.
So in short, my journey; started with COBOL on 1900; continued with COBOL and some ICL specific 4GL (that I can't remember the name of - AML or something) on 2900; C (on DEC), VB6 in 2001 (yes, after 20 odd years I progressed to the dizzy heights of Trainee VB Programmer!), and currently Java.
I think I prefer the Java!