I learned originally on a VIC-20 by typing in games out of books from the public library. At some point we upgraded to an XT and a friend sold me a copy of Power C for $20. It came with a beautiful hard copy library reference and the rest, as they say, is history!
Power C! I grew up in Germany and after the inevitable BASIC, C was the second language I learned, using Power C as a compiler, which I ordered by mail and which arrived from the States several weeks later, including the hard copy reference manual you mention. I also remember it came with a rudimentary graphics library I used to create screen savers for friends. Good times.
Still costs the same now as it did when I bought it!
Yeah, the graphics library was great! When I moved on to Linux and gcc, I was disappointed for a while that I didn't have all those super simple primitives to work with.
