I still have two shelves worth of Dr, Dobbs issues
At the time, Dr Dobbs was the only source of in-depth articles on a wide variety of topics. The other mags available around here were too topic specific (PC or games, mostly) and not anywhere close in technical depth.
I fondly remember the assembly wizardty genius that transpired from Michael Abrash contributions, Al Stevens pragmatism with his C column, and Dick Pountain down to earth approach to problems and new technologies. Dr Dobbs helped me cross the gap from hobbyst to someone capable of creating bigger (not necessarily better) things with some resemblance to what a professional could do. Plus, the FreeBSD series provided fascinating insight into the birth of a quite influential portion of the OS landscape.
My feeling is that Dr Dobbs represents an era when a single guy, or a couple of them, could create on their own something that meant a significant change for the industry or people in general. Or at least dream about it. And in fact it happened, A couple of guys here and there and we had Linux, Google, MySpace, Facebook and all that. It seems impossible today.
I have a shelf full of old Byte issues also just in case you want another dose of nostalgia.
Thank you, Dr. Dobbs, you'll be remembered.