My local library(US) had a few of these and I'd copied some BASIC programs them onto my Apple //c and didn't know why they didn't work all the time, specifically $CHR or anything involving peek and poke.

8 year old me knew there was something different about the comic art alongside the text, yet I couldn't explain what. Turns out - British!

The machine code books would have been useful at that time, but again, I'm 8 playing with a hand-me-down Apple with no other help. I don't know what I don't know and I have no mentorship and no internet or bbs access to download new stuff.

Kids today have access to all the video tutorials they could ever want.

e: God DAMN line numbers suck. And double god damn do line editors (think ed as opposed to vim) with no proper backspace.