The importance of little boy no. 11
In demo mode, ERIC bases his every move on where little boy no. 11 is and what he's doing (see the routine at
62938). One corollary of this important role is that little boy no. 11 is in all of ERIC's classes (if he weren't, ERIC would be guilty of truancy in demo mode). In fact, little boy no. 11 is the only character besides EINSTEIN who joins ERIC for every class.
Alternative differences
The version of Skool Daze that was released by Alternative Software Ltd in 1987 contains three visible differences from the version released by Microsphere in 1984.
(1) MR WITHIT's blackboard message at
59392 reads 'WHY IT RAINS IN MANCHESTER' (which doesn't fit on the blackboard) instead of 'MANCHESTER MONSOONS'.
(2) The font graphic for the '/' (slash) character is slightly broken:
|
instead of |
 |
(3) In the stampede playtimes (lessons
252 and
253), the stampede leader (little boy no. 1) walks up and down only 7 times instead of 40 while waiting for his comrades to join him.
Note that (1) and (2) appear to be regressions, which suggests that the version released by Alternative is based on an earlier cut of the code than the version released by Microsphere.
One pace or three?
If a teacher is conducting a class without ERIC, or is conducting ERIC's class but has chosen not to engage in a question-and-answer session with EINSTEIN, he will pace up and down in front of the blackboard (or map). But the number of paces up and then down depends on the room he's in.
If he's in the White Room, he will take one pace up and then down, oscillating between x-coordinates 29 and 30. If he's in the Reading Room, he will also take one pace up and then down, oscillating between x-coordinates 45 and 46. And if he's in the Map Room, he will once again take one pace up and then down, oscillating between x-coordinates 61 and 62. But if he's in the Exam Room, he will take three paces up and then down, oscillating between x-coordinates 44 and 47.
The reason for this discrepancy in pace numbers is the method used to calculate the teacher's next pace-up or pace-down destination, which is to take his current x-coordinate and do an XOR 3 on it: see the sections of code at
32115 and
62429.
Invulnerable moments
ERIC can usually throw a punch or fire his catapult and be confident that the impact will send one of the kids or teachers tumbling. However, on certain occasions, certain characters are invulnerable to ERIC's violence. Those characters and occasions are as follows:
MR WACKER, when he's looking for ERIC after EINSTEIN has told him what ERIC's up to
MR WACKER, when he's looking for ERIC after finding the pea-shooter on the fire escape
MR WACKER, when he's looking for ERIC to send him home after accumulating 10000 or more lines
MR ROCKITT, when he's looking for ERIC to send him home after catching mumps from ANGELFACE
Little boy no. 10, when he's looking for ERIC to tell him about ANGELFACE, EINSTEIN or BOY WANDER in one of the special playtimes (
243,
244,
245)
The reason these characters are invulnerable while looking for ERIC is that they are under the control of the uninterruptible subcommand routine at
63390.
Undeliverable message
On those occasions when MR WACKER, MR ROCKITT or little boy no. 10 is looking for ERIC to deliver a message, ERIC can delay delivery of the message by making sure that he is writing on a blackboard when the messenger arrives. The messenger will then wait until ERIC has finished scribbling before commencing delivery.
To verify this, use the following POKEs (which make every playtime the 'special' playtime in which little boy no. 10 will come looking for ERIC to tell him that EINSTEIN is going to grass him up to MR WACKER) and then head for the nearest blackboard:
If you're feeling very patient, you can use this stalling technique to avoid having to take part in the special playtime: just stand at the blackboard for about 20 minutes until the bell rings.
Rather more interesting is that you can use this technique to
avoid expulsion.
BOY WANDER shoots, ERIC scores
BOY WANDER may be a tearaway, but sometimes his impulsive nature can be more of a help than a hindrance. If he lets rip with his catapult and the pellet knocks ANGELFACE for six, you score 10 points - just as if ERIC had decked the bully himself. The reason for this is that the section of code at
28025 does not bother to check whose pellet has collided with ANGELFACE's head. (The check for pellet ownership was added in Back to Skool, though.)
It's also possible for one of BOY WANDER's pellets to bounce off a teacher's head, hit a shield, and make it flash - scoring even more points - but that would be a rare occurrence indeed.
The mystery of the unused status flag
Bit 6 of ERIC's status flags at
32763 is unused: it's always 0. However, the routines at
25983 (down),
26084 (up) and
26194 (left) check the flag and act on the result.
25983 (down) checks bit 6 early on. If it's set, a jump is made over the code that checks whether ERIC is on or near a staircase, straight to the code that moves ERIC left or right (depending on which way he's facing).
26084 (up) does the same, which suggests that bit 6 may once have been set or reset elsewhere to indicate whether ERIC is on a staircase.
However,
26194 (left) suggests otherwise. It checks bit 6, and if it's reset, a jump is made over some code that looks as if it was once used to adjust ERIC's animatory state in some way: see
26250.
What was this flag used for originally? The mystery may never be solved.
Teachers and classrooms
MR WACKER is the only teacher who teaches ERIC in all four classrooms. See his
personal timetable.
MR WITHIT never teaches ERIC in the Reading Room or the Exam Room, but does teach other kids in those rooms. See his
personal timetable.
Timetable stats
There are 64 periods in the
main timetable: 26 playtimes, 4 dinner periods, and 34 lesson periods (when ERIC is supposed to be in either a classroom or the Revision Library).
In the 34 lesson periods, ERIC is scheduled to be in the White Room 11 times, the Reading Room 8 times, the Map Room 6 times, the Exam Room 4 times, and the Revision Library 5 times.
ERIC has 8 classes with MR WACKER, 8 classes with MR ROCKITT, 7 classes with MR WITHIT, and 6 classes with MR CREAK.
ERIC has 5 classes with MR ROCKITT in the White Room (which is more than any other teacher/classroom combination), but only one class with MR WACKER in the White Room and only one class with MR ROCKITT in the Exam Room.
MR WACKER is on dinner duty for two of the dinner periods, and MR WITHIT is on duty for the other two.
MR ROCKITT and MR WITHIT are the busiest teachers, each teaching a class in 29 of the 34 lesson periods. MR WACKER is the laziest teacher, teaching a class in only 26 periods.
MR WACKER teaches most often in the Exam Room (13 times); MR ROCKITT teaches most often in the White Room and the Exam Room (12 times each); MR WITHIT teaches most often in the Map Room (19 times); and MR CREAK teaches most often in the Reading Room (17 times).
Every boy is taught at least 3 times by each teacher, and at least 3 times in each classroom. However, little boys 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9 are - unlike all the other boys - never in the Revision Library during a lesson period.
ANGELFACE spends more lesson periods in the Revision Library than any other boy (9 periods compared to BOY WANDER's 7 and ERIC's 5).
Playtime probabilities
During playtime, the teacher most likely to be found pacing up and down in the staff room is MR CREAK, who spends 23 of the 26 playtimes in the
main timetable in that room (the three exceptions being those playtimes where the little boys stampede around the skool). The teacher least likely to be found in the staff room is MR WACKER, who spends only three playtimes there; the other 23 playtimes he divides between his study (3 times) and walking around the skool (20).
BOY WANDER spends most of his playtimes (16 out of 26) in search of clean blackboards to write on.
ANGELFACE and EINSTEIN spend every playtime wandering around the skool from one
randomly chosen location to another. The 11 little boys, however, split their playtimes between wandering around the skool and walking up and down in one of the four playtime locations (Revision Library, fire escape, gym and big window) until the bell rings.
The playtime probabilities described here are all subject to alteration by the fact that, three times out of eight, a playtime in the main timetable is replaced with a 'special' playtime (
243,
244 or
245) chosen at random (see
28211).
Hands up!
The graphic data contains unused sprites of the main kids sitting down with a hand raised:
Were these used while the game was in development? We'll probably never know.
Board-wiping WANDER
The board-wiping routine at
29148 checks whether BOY WANDER (as opposed to a teacher) is wiping the board, and executes a different code path accordingly. However, BOY WANDER never makes use of this ability in the game that was released. Did he use it while the game was in development? Again, we'll probably never know.
Save the duster
There are code remnants in the board-wiping routine at
29148 that make a teacher skip wiping the blackboard if it's already clean. The POKEs to re-enable this code are:
POKE 29151,79: POKE 29152,6
However, the code that would make the teacher walk to the middle of the blackboard after deciding not to wipe it is missing, so if you try these POKEs, expect to see some oddness during lessons where the board starts off clean.
WACKER loves EINSTEIN's tales
MR WACKER never gives EINSTEIN lines for telling tales (see
31968). Is WACKER merely gullible, a firm believer in the virtue of snitching, or both?
WACKER's letter-blindness
The first letter of the safe combination code (MR WACKER's) is always in the range A-O (see
63573). Did WACKER never learn the alphabet from P to Z when he was at skool?
WHICH BATTLE OCCURRED IN 1800?
Among the 21 battle dates that comprise MR CREAK's history curriculum, 1800 makes no appearance. But perhaps it was not always so: see
58600. We can only speculate which battle from that year EINSTEIN would have chosen for his answer.
WITHIT edited
There is evidence that MR WITHIT used to be rather more verbose with his blackboard scribblings, but was edited before the game was released. See 'MANCHESTER MONSOONS' at
59392, which was probably 'WHY IT RAINS IN MANCHESTER' at some point (see
Alternative differences). Likewise, 'THE PEAKS OF PERU' at
59456 may once have been expressed less tersely (or been about something other than PEAKS). Finally, which rain-forest other than Glasgow's could WITHIT have been writing about at
59488?