I was programming well before I was learned anything about analog electronic circuits. I had the Radio Shack 160-in-one like anyone else and I could follow the directions but I didn't understand what was happening because I was thinking of it as an orderly pipeline, almost like a conveyor belt, where each component was doing a task. It wasn't until college when we studied LRC circuits in physics that it finally clicked for me. What the individual components do by themselves is not very interesting but it's their behavior when you put them together, that the magic happens. Essentially you are creating a vibration, a wave. You are creating a resonating system. Your waves can be in various dimensions like current and voltage. You can adjust the magnitude and frequency of the waves to perform useful tasks.

I had RadioShack's "ScienceFair"-brand (co-branded with RadioShack) "Advanced Electronics Lab - 300 projects" kit when I was very young. https://www.ebay.com/p/2254341989

I just found it again yesterday at a very old-school electronics shop. The kind of delightful place packed wall-to-wall & floor-to-ceiling with stuff where each category (test equipment, passive & active components, motors, motor drivers, audio, video, hobby-everything) is either super well organized (passive "jellybean" components) or a giant pile of eclectic offerings stretching across 40 years of technological history (test equipment).

I bought it for nostalgia, and I might fix it up or even upgrade it to give to my niece when she's old enough. But looking through it confirmed something I'd long suspected:

1) Things like LRC circuits don't make sense without an oscilloscope. I have one now but REALLY wish I had one as a kid, even a crazy-cheap incredibly low quality one would have been amazing.

2) The book was VERY poorly written, seemed rushed and minimally thoughtful - there was no real explanation of fundamentals that could be used to drive creativity and exploration. I wish I'd had a book which explained concepts better. I didn't start understanding electronics in any interesting way until I took calculus-based electromagnetic physics in college.

Using the kit was mainly fun for me to blow up old-school red LED's. It gave me familiarity with electronics schematic symbols, breadboards, and some very basic tinkering. That young childhood familiarity made me much more comfortable around electrical pursuits throughout my life.

Do you happen to know of any good modern alternatives to those vintage Radio Shack kits?

I begged and begged, but never got the 160-in-one. =\

I did put together a lot of Radio Shack project-in-a-boxes though.