Just as a smell can jog memories or seeing an old school make us reminisce, books do the same for me. In particular 80's books dealing with programming. I learned to code in Basic from a childhood friend. Back then I felt a massive amount of excitement when I wrote software. My best childhood memories where programming, I even remember bring my Commodore Dattassette to a friends house to show him and his dad my software. It was a magical time in my life. I would eat breath and dream of Commodore.
Going to the School Library in elementary was an exciting part of that time. In a pre-internet age being in grades 3 & 4 I had very little access to information and instruction on the topic of programming. The library was my main source of materials for reading, programming and day dreaming. One publisher in particular - USBORNE caught my eye.
Useborn books where full of color with bright images. They where simple and easy to read. The books contained simple basic programs that would run on multiple early computer systems. Many of their type in "Games" where the starting point of my own programs that I could add to.
To my excitement it turns out these books have been posted for free by the publisher! If you remember these books from your childhood I would defiantly add this stroll down memory lane to your to-do list.
Check out Free PDF's of Usborne books:
https://usborne.com/browse-books/features/computer-and-coding-books/
Vic-20 User Manual as PDF:
http://www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/vic20/manuals/VIC-20_Personal_Computing_Guide.pdf
Compute!'s book on the C=64:
https://archive.org/details/COMPUTES_First_Book_of_Commodore_64_1983_COMPUTE_Publications
Enjoy the reading! :-)