I never got into BBS because Europe but I had a similar experience (or origin story). My first quest to find another programming language came when I figured out I needed something that could produce .exe instead of .bas. I went to a local store and browsed the computer books section and picked up a TurboPascal 7.0 (iirc) book that came with the compiler on a floppy disk. I selected the book and thus my second language after Basic (which came on the computer, no idea how I ever "found" it) by a great process. It was the biggest book so it must be the best. Oh kid logic :D

And why did I need to write some .exe...well I wanted to write a password protection for the computer that I could load in command.com so that I could lock out my sister from useing the computer. Nobel causes and ideas indeed that brought me to where I am these days. I'm still baffled how I figured all of this wizzardry out in the first place (the guy who sold us the computer must have mentioned command.com...I cannot recall how I even know it existed).

We got a computer super late and noone I knew was remotely interested in this stuff. There was no internet (or BBS) because we didn't have any connections to anything. I still remember how thrilling it was to go to the library and browse the computer books and learn there's evene more programming languages.

Amazing :D - it's quite similar to my experience. I think many folks naturally ended up moving to Turbo Pascal after Basic. I believe many of the BBS systems were initially written in Turbo Pascal (v4?). I know for a fact that WWIV, Telegard, and Renegade were all in done in TP, and then later moved to C++ because of the limitations associated with running Door games.. ah, the good 'ole times