I agree better tools have the potential to make us more productive. I also think some nerd/hacker types tend to overrate the importance of their tools and gadgets, because this stuff serves as a proxy for actual talent and it's easier to show off and compare (These are not my words, someone else said it elsewhere in this thread, but once I read it, it really clicked with me).
It's one thing to say "I'm more productive with $GADGET". It's another, different thing to say "we weren't productive before $GADGET". I assure some of the old hackers, back in the days when they coded on a PDP-11 (or an Apple II, or whatever) where more productive than me and -- without knowing you -- I'm willing to bet they could be more productive than you. In my opinion the mindset that old tech wasn't "good enough", that leads people to claim "we weren't productive before" in absolute terms, is really pernicious and unhealthy.
Mind you, I'm not saying all gadgets are equal. Faster CPUs to me are obviously more useful than a larger screen. Both are nice, but one is more important than the other.
However, the most important peripheral, the one that makes the most impact on productivity: my brain. And I can't show it off as easily as a brand new macbook or whatever.
It’s indisputable that modern screens, tools, etc make developers more productive than smaller screens, slower CPUs did.
I used to have 30 minute compile times. Was I “productive “? Sure, I guess, but 20 second compile times make me more productive.
And being able to see over one hundred lines of code side by side with documentation makes me even more productive.