Back to Skool Trivia
The importance of little boy no. 10

In demo mode, ERIC bases his every move on where little boy no. 10 is and what he's doing. See the routine at 62483.

BASIC saver POKEs

There are two POKEs in the BASIC saver program that saves the fast code block to tape:

POKE 29387,80: POKE 29391,45

These POKEs set the instruction at 29130 to 'LD L,80' and the instruction at 29135 to 'DEC L'. (The contents of addresses 24832-32767 are shifted down by 256 bytes to 24576 by the startup routine at 33204 before the game starts.) One wonders what these instructions were before they were POKEd. Perhaps:

29124 IN A,(31)
29126 AND 31 Any input from the joystick?
29128 JR Z,29154 Jump if not
29130 LD L,79 79='O' (LEFT)
29132 RRCA
29133 JR C,29151 Jump if the joystick was moved right
29135 INC L L=80='P' (RIGHT)
29136 RRCA
29137 JR C,29151 Jump if the joystick was moved left

Which would suggest that David Reidy liked moving the joystick right to move ERIC left, and vice versa. Who knows?

Lesson 43, where art thou?

Lesson 43 (MR WITHIT - YELLOW ROOM) does not appear anywhere in the main timetable. But it is a perfectly good lesson. If you want to try it out:

POKE 46544,43

This removes the first PLAYTIME that normally takes place when starting the game and replaces it with lesson 43.

Teachers and classrooms

MR WITHIT is the only teacher who teaches ERIC in all three classrooms. See his personal timetable.

MR ROCKITT never teaches in the Blue Room, and never teaches ERIC anywhere except in the Science Lab. See his personal timetable.

MR CREAK never teaches in the Science Lab. See his personal timetable.

ANGELFACE and EINSTEIN are conkerable

If EINSTEIN or ANGELFACE is hit by a conker, he is knocked out, you get 100 points, and a unique sound effect is played. See the section of code at 29943.

ANGELFACE hates HAYLEY

During some playtimes, ANGELFACE specifically hunts down HAYLEY for the sole purpose of hitting her. See command list 44.

HAYLEY's lines count too

If HAYLEY is given lines - for being the nearest main kid to a downed teacher - they are added to ERIC's total.

Pellet v. water v. plant v. desk lid

RAM is in short supply in Back to Skool. For example, ERIC's catapult pellet is forced to share its character buffer with plants, desk lids, and water/sherry fired from the pistol. One consequence of this is that ERIC cannot open a desk lid immediately after firing his catapult. Another is that ERIC cannot fire his catapult while standing on a plant that's just been watered. Yet another is that he cannot fire his water pistol while his catapult pellet is still airborne.