Hah! Somehow my parents had a GW Basic manual (but neither could program), so in my endless afternoons I ported some code from GW's dialect to QBasic's in order to make it work on my newer Basic interpreter.
Without Internet, an empty mind is Basic's workshop.
Don't you sometimes feel the internet is a double-edged sword?
Back then it was you and the computer, and maybe some magazines (well, and maybe BBS'es, but I never got into that). You had time to focus. The only major distraction were games, but then again we have many more today, and ALSO all the distractions of the always connected world.
The advantages today are obvious: every answer at your fingertips, online guides and interactive tutorials aplenty, chat, stackoverflow, no reason to get stuck in your programming journey.
Without Internet, an empty mind is Basic's workshop.