I had 1980's BASIC books in 1992 along with a 386SX running QBASIC. I learned what I could from GORILLAS and NIBBLES. I looked through some books at the mall bookstore, but I didn't know anything about Microsoft C, dBase, and what the hell was CLIPPER? I didn't understand how computers 'worked' until much later. A C64 and an assembly language book might have built a real solid foundation.
I didn't know any adults or older kids when I was a kid who did anything with computers. I think that if my mom could have taken me to any kind of computer or programming class at the local community college, that would have been huge. Computer class in school was mostly typing, Oregon Trail and putting any kids who tried to run BASIC, go online, or bring programs from home into detention. Of course, we played pranks like swapping CTRL and ALT on the IBM keyboards, or running the PEEK/POKE command on the Apples to change the refresh rate of the monitor.