I started coding at the age of 10 in the early 80's, using a Timex 2068.
My first source of information were the computer provided manuals, with them I got to learn Basic and overall computer architecture.
Then back on those days there were lots of books targeted to get kids to learn programming. With them I got to improve my Basic skills, learn Z80 Assembly and enjoy typing Assembly via hexdumps.
Later I started reading the Input magazine, which had code to type for all major 8 bit platforms.
At the same time I was getting MicroHobby, MicroMania and the newspaper A Capital with its computer section on Friday's.
Then when my English skills improved, Crash and Your Sinclair became part of my magazine collection.
Later I got into the PC and Amiga worlds, then I was reading Spooler, Amiga Format, PC Techniques, Dr. Dobb's Journal, The C User's Journal which became The C/C++ User's Journal, C++ Report, Microsoft Systems Journal, Game Developers Magazine. After having devoured all the programming manuals that came with all Borland products I was using.
During my GNU/Linux FOSS zealot phase I was also a regular buyer of Linux Journal and Linux Format.
Parallel to all those magazines, regular trips to the local library, getting some books when travelling to Lisbon or Porto.
Access to BBS were out of my budget back then, so I only got to access them when I got into the university.
So I started to access BBS, shortly followed by Gopher sites and USENET, before the Web got any meaningful meaning.
Also given that the university had a huge collection of CS books and research papers, all the way back to the foundations of computer science, I also got to visit it regularly.
Other than that there were the computer clubs and demoscene meetings to get to exchange knowledge between persons that shared the same interests about programming.
There was a series of disassembled and commented ROM and OS series named "Journey to the center of the ROM" for the TRS80 family and that was very instructive for me. Sort of like "Lions Commentary on UNIX" but a decade later for Z80 rather than unix v6.
Something to realize is back in the old days even the old timers only had like two years of experience writing Z80 code. And you were limited by memory enough that scalability problems were not an issue. And people with more than 2 years of experience perhaps writing IBM360 assembler were making so much money they had little interest in these Z80 6809 6502 things.
There was a ROM disassembly for the 48K Spectrum as well, but as things were on those days, I only got my hands on the book when I was already using a 80386 SX PC and it happened to land on the local library.
I eventually bought it, more due to nostalgia than anything else.
My first source of information were the computer provided manuals, with them I got to learn Basic and overall computer architecture.
Then back on those days there were lots of books targeted to get kids to learn programming. With them I got to improve my Basic skills, learn Z80 Assembly and enjoy typing Assembly via hexdumps.
Later I started reading the Input magazine, which had code to type for all major 8 bit platforms.
At the same time I was getting MicroHobby, MicroMania and the newspaper A Capital with its computer section on Friday's.
Then when my English skills improved, Crash and Your Sinclair became part of my magazine collection.
Later I got into the PC and Amiga worlds, then I was reading Spooler, Amiga Format, PC Techniques, Dr. Dobb's Journal, The C User's Journal which became The C/C++ User's Journal, C++ Report, Microsoft Systems Journal, Game Developers Magazine. After having devoured all the programming manuals that came with all Borland products I was using.
During my GNU/Linux FOSS zealot phase I was also a regular buyer of Linux Journal and Linux Format.
Parallel to all those magazines, regular trips to the local library, getting some books when travelling to Lisbon or Porto.
Access to BBS were out of my budget back then, so I only got to access them when I got into the university.
So I started to access BBS, shortly followed by Gopher sites and USENET, before the Web got any meaningful meaning.
Also given that the university had a huge collection of CS books and research papers, all the way back to the foundations of computer science, I also got to visit it regularly.
Other than that there were the computer clubs and demoscene meetings to get to exchange knowledge between persons that shared the same interests about programming.