I hate to admit it, but the first computer I "tried to program" was
the Univac 1 and the (Sperry?) Mark IV - all programming was in binary
and short term memory was mercury delay tanks (this in 1956 or so) -
you checked your "program" on a hand cranked Monroe! The only thing
that mattered was conserving machine time & I was the world's worst,
one of my roomates was the top of the class, went to MIT & got his
Ph.D with Shannon, ended up at Bell labs and wrote the file structure
for unix. Another roomate also got a job at Bell, and was responsible
for a graphical user interface for whatever editor replaced vi.

I decided there was no future in computers, switched out of mechanical
engineering, finished up with a BA in physics.

I have used a few of the early computers (including the Curta).. Joel
in Florida