Dear reader, I bring to your attention a translation of a book by British programmer Bob Pape, who was mainly involved in the creation and conversion of computer games. His most famous work is perhaps the conversion of the game R-Type for the ZX-Spectrum. In this book, he recalls the main milestones of his professional career. Who might be interested in this? Probably for those who want to take an inside look at the life and creative path of an ordinary programmer, while simultaneously tracking the history of computer technology. Of course, if you are fluent in English, then it is better to read the book in the original (see link below), in any other case I invite you to read , but I warn you that this is an amateur translation (!), which may contain inaccuracies. Your humble servant omitted things that were quite specific to Great Britain, and also left almost all the titles and names in the original. The author of the translation could not resist inserting his own notes, which will be printed in brackets in italics.