In 1982, I purchased a new Japanese ASHI Pentax K1000 with ASHI Optical Company SMC Pentax-M 50 mm f/2 lens. The light meter in my Pentax K1000 was a big help for this all manual film camera. An Argus 1038 Flash Unit in the hot shoe was used when needed. Surprisingly, my old Pentax K1000 still works! Film cameras remind me to slow down, think more about composition, different perspectives and angles of view with digital cameras.
The first camera I had that I could actually set apeture, shutter speed and ISO was a Kodak EasyShare DX7590 5.0MP Digital Camera. I had no idea what P, A, S or M meant, but I understood AUTO, so that's what I used. I subsequently lost years of photos I took with that camera when my hard drive crashed and my backup drive wasn't backing up. Lesson learned.
My next camera was a Nikon D5200. With the help of sites like Photography Life, I learned what those funny letters meant and how to use them with varying levels of success.
I am semi-retired now and treated myself to a Nikon Z8. This is the camera (and glass) I have been waiting for and am really enjoying it.
I understood AUTO, so that's what I used.
...and what did you use when you weren't taking pictures of cars? 😝
My first interchangeable lens camera (Is that what you mean by "real"?): Pentax K1000. I was in grad school at the time, so I didn't have the budget for anything but 3rd party lenses. Used it heavily through grad school for color slides of botanical and outdoor subjects, not much after that.
Mostly various film and digital point-and-shoot cameras until last summer, when I started shooting MFT.
But the *really* first camera I shot a lot with (high school photography class during the middle Pleistocene) was a Kodak Pony. Set exposure by guess or by hand-held iight meter. No in-camera focussing aids at all; focus by eyeballing the distance and turning the dial on the lens. Having an in-camera light meter and a split prism in the camera for focussing was a revelation when I bought the K1000.
My first cameralike device was a Kodak Instamatic 50 (I was 8 years old then).
My first real camera was the Minolta SRT-100X, followd by a Minolta XG-2. Since then I always had Nikon.
Mine was a funny one. Canon EOS IX APS-C SLR. It was a birthday or Christmas present received with a Quantaray 28-80mm f3.5-5.6 lens. It's actually still slinking around at my parents' house (just the body, I gave the lens away) because I can't think of anyone actually wanting to purchase it. Maybe a little nostalgia. Okay, it was a pretty limited camera and APS-C film was not really the best idea for a beginner. But it got me caught hard for a continued love of photography.