I found the 5 monitor setup is interesting. Some of our ops (!= programmer) people have multiple (>2 monitors) but I have found there's no much point going beyond 3, tops 4 because then you start losing sight of important things happening in them. In my experience it is much better to optimise the real estate on 2 widescreen or 3 regular monitors.
I'm glad to see everybody seems to have 2+ widescreen monitors. Where I work, an amazing number of people work off a single laptop-sized screen all day. I don't understand how they can do it; it makes me wonder if I'm some kind of programmer-'tard who needs special equipment to function. Good to get some affirmation to the contrary.
The equipment is not so important. I have written some great applications hunched over my 9" eeepc. Generally, I use a 24" monitor and happy hacking keyboard, though; which definitely makes things easier. (It also makes it easier to get distracted by HN, though.)
I spent a while coding on a 15" Lenovo laptop and it works because the resolution is 1920 x 1200. I still like to use multiple monitors but it's not really necessary.
Worst coding environment was probably one of those CRT iMac's running OS 8.
I sit in front of my 24" monitor when working in the Flash IDE, Illustrator or PhotoShop; otherwise I prefer working directly on my laptop. I generally just keep an instance of MacVim, a terminal and a browser open; I find myself staying more focused this way -- albeit I miss having a source of reference open next to the editor at times.
I have those for long term notes (notes from a meeting for example), but if a customer calls and I need to jot down a phone number or something really quick, having a whiteboard desktop is great.
How can anyone stand those nasty apple keyboards. Apple makes wonderful computers but their keyboards and mice are some of the worst I have ever had the displesure of using.
I haven't yet switched to multiple monitors. My laptop and I have been through so much coding together, it might just feel like cheating to start using my desktop.
I like my office a lot, with two full walls of windows. I have enough room for two desks, 5 monitors, and a couch/coffee table for sitting and thinking. I use 3 monitors for my main computer, and I find that it's the perfect amount of real estate.
Most notably - http://www.deskography.org/media/desks/images/brian_desk_jpg...