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Trivia |
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.
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.
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.
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.
MR WACKER is the only teacher who teaches ERIC in all four classrooms. See his personal timetable.
MR ROCKITT never teaches in the Map Room. 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.
MR CREAK never teaches in the Map Room or the Exam Room. See his personal timetable.
The graphic data contains unused sprites of the main kids sitting down with a hand raised. See animatory states 4 (ERIC), 20 (EINSTEIN), 36 (ANGELFACE), and 52 (BOY WANDER). Were these used while the game was in development? We'll probably never know.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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 looks as if it may once have been 'MONSOONS OF MANCHESTER'. 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?