Building rigs was fun back then... no plug and play. Lots of jumpers, specifying HDD parameters, etc.
Those were the days.
I imagine how much difficulty there was at that time, because it's not like today where there is Google/YouTube for any query (it really should be very difficult!)... In the past, people dedicated themselves to building and exploring really cool things... very different from today where there are infinite distractions....
The internet was close to useless for many things back then. A low-res image took several minutes to download. You could go to the bathroom, come back, and see how much of it had filled in. Videos? Forget about it. Things picked up a bit with the advent of DSL and cable connections.
I mostly learned from paper and ink magazines like Maximum PC, library books, and from experienced friends. By friends I mean real people face-to-face.
As I said, those were the days.