I loved Dr Dobbs Journal. Used to buy it every month when I was in college and barely understood any of it.
Inspired by DDJ, I remember writing my own versions of PILOT and a "Tiny BASIC" with floating point, in Z-80 assembly, a couple years before I got my first computer. Probably still have those notebooks somewhere, I'm sure that code is terrible :-)
I'm grateful to DDJ for its liveliness, breadth of subject matter (okay, "randomness"), and simple enthusiasm for teaching people about personal computing.