Any medium or large format camera when fitted with a wide angle lens and make a crop from top, bottom or both, will give a fantastic panorama image.
On old 35mm cams (Cheap ones) I remember same thing was made by pushing a bottom that would add two curtain in lower and upper frame to give a pseudo-pano effect at low price (Early 80s).
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The Cream of the Panorama in 35mm world however was this one:
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That uses a half a cylinder to make the real effect.
But then with the advent of digital, like a lot of other very difficult dark room task or special effects, panorama has been turned to a piece of cake. No you don't need software or expensive cameras. The cheapest Canon point and shoots or for that matter, many other brands, are equipped with a very easy mode (You dial to it) then visor will be split to two segment, one on the left, real time, the other small portion on the far right that has a bit of right corner image of the last shoot. So you start to take picture from far left side of scene, each time using guide, Turing to right, no tripod needed and take as many as picture as you want (Usually 5 or 6 images are one full circle) and then using supplied software that comes free with the camera, you make a wonderful pano with a large file size. Now problem you have is to how to show it to others or print it.