Orbilius is an interactive vocabulary and verb program designed to be used with Gavin Betts, Teach Yourself Latin Units 1-16. You can use it to test yourself on verb endings and vocabulary, or simply as a kind of interactive flash card to help you revise. It also includes a hangman game of negligible pedagogic value.
There are versions for Windows and for PowerMac. I can't get the database operations to run on antique (68k) Macs, despite the fact it was written on one. If anyone's desperate for a cut-down 68k version (verbs and hangman only), or for a MacOS X version that runs in Carbon rather than Classic, let me know. The Windows version is pretty nasty, but seems mostly to work; sorry it looks so horrible. Minimum system requirements: MacOS 7.5 or better; Windows 95 with DirectX installed.
- If you're downloading this from the web, you'll need to expand it. On a Mac, double-click the "Latin.sea" file; on Windows, use WinZip or similar to unzip the "Latin.zip" file. (I can't put a self-extracting zip file up as this server doesn't allow download of .exe files.) You can then bin the original .sea or .zip file. Here are the files:
- Make sure the "Latin.rdb" file is in the same folder as the Orbilius application.
- Double-click the Orbilius application to launch.
You'll see this when you first start Orbilius, or if you select "verbs" from the Orbilius menu. You'll get a window looking something like this, depending on your system:
- Use the conjugation popup menu to select a verb you want to work with, and the Unit popup menu to select the level in the course that you want to stick within. Then do one of the following:
- Use the "person", "number", "tense", "mood", "voice", and/or "conjugation" popup menus to display a particular form you're looking for.
- Click "conjugate" (or on a Mac, you can just hit return) to scroll through the table from the selected form. At any point you can click "reset table" to go back to the first person singular of the present indicative active.
- Click "new form" to be given a random form from the table to guess, and then use the popup menus to identify it. When you're ready, click "mark guess" (or on a Mac you can just hit return). If you're right, you'll get 1 added to your score; otherwise, you'll get 1 subtracted. Click "give up?" for Orbilius to give you the correct answer. (You score 0.) If you now click "conjugate" it'll start to run through the table from the first person singular of the tense, mood, and voice selected.
- Use the "person", "number", "tense", "mood", "voice", and/or "conjugation" popup menus to display a particular form you're looking for.
- The last two options under the conjugation popup menu allow you to work with verbs of your choice or the program's.
- If you select "choose", you'll get a box into which you can type the principal parts of a verb of your choice (even a made-up one), which Orbilius will then conjugate and/or test you on exactly as above.
- If you select "random", the program itself will select a random verb from the vocabulary when you click "new form", and offer you the chance to score an extra point by guessing the principal parts. If you don't recognise the verb chosen, you can then click the "look up" button to have Orbilius find the verb for you in the vocabulary module (see the next section).
- A few things to be aware of:
- Orbilius isn't clever enough to distinguish between identical endings, such as regam future indicative and regam present subjunctive, or those forms of the perfect subjunctive that are the same as the future perfect indicative. Luckily, there aren't too many of these. Think of this feature as introducing a piquant touch of the casino.
- Orbilius isn't bothered about the distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs, so will quite cheerfully quote you passive forms of verbs like "appear" that can't actually have a passive that would mean anything.
- This version of Orbilius doesn't believe in the existence of irregular verbs. If you enter a set of deponent or irregular principal parts, Orbilius will just get confused and huffy.
- Orbilius isn't clever enough to distinguish between identical endings, such as regam future indicative and regam present subjunctive, or those forms of the perfect subjunctive that are the same as the future perfect indicative. Luckily, there aren't too many of these. Think of this feature as introducing a piquant touch of the casino.
- Select "vocabulary" from the Orbilius menu. (You can have both the vocabulary and verb windows open at once.) You'll get a window like this:
- Use the popup menu to select the Unit you want to work on.
- Click "only" to be tested on the words in the chosen Unit only, or "up to and including" to be tested on all words up to and including those in the chosen Unit.
- Click "new word" to be given a new Latin word.
- Now do one of the following:
- Type a guess and click "mark guess". If you're right, you'll get 1 added to your score; otherwise, you'll get 1 subtracted. Be warned that the program is phenomenally stupid and insists on the exact same definition as it's got in its database (= the old RHUL vocab booklet).
- Click "give up?" for the program to give you the correct answer. Your score is unaffected.
- Click "new word" again to go straight to another word.
- Type a guess and click "mark guess". If you're right, you'll get 1 added to your score; otherwise, you'll get 1 subtracted. Be warned that the program is phenomenally stupid and insists on the exact same definition as it's got in its database (= the old RHUL vocab booklet).
- The program also tells you whether the word was in one of the Unit vocabularies in TYL Units 1-9 (a "v" after the Unit number) or was introduced in the Latin Reading passages in Units 10-16 (an "r" after the Unit number).
- Select "Hangman" from the Orbilius menu. Orbilius will present you with a simple hangman game. You can choose to guess either a word from the vocabulary or an inflected form of a verb. The level of difficulty is determined by your current settings in the other windows - so if you just want to guess a form of the indicative active of amo, for example, you'd set the "conjugation" popup to "1st" and the unit popup to 5.
- To guess letters, simply click a letter button. If the letter appears in the word, Orbilius will fill in all the occurrences. If it's not in the word, Orbilius will draw part of the gallows. You win, and your score is increased by 1, if you get all the letters in the word before Orbilius has finished the drawing. If Orbilius finishes the drawing before you've got all the letters, your score will be decreased by 1.
- A couple of things to note:
- U and V are not distinguished for guessing purposes, though for clarity's sake consonantal U is spelled as a V on screen.
- If you have "verb forms" selected, you'll get an extra button to guess a space character, since perfect tenses of the passive are compound (two-word) forms. The space button will only appear if you've selected a level of play in the verbs module that allows these tenses of the passive among the forms guessed.
- U and V are not distinguished for guessing purposes, though for clarity's sake consonantal U is spelled as a V on screen.
- At any point in the game, you can do one of the following:
- Click "new game" to abandon this game and start another.
- Click "give up?" to have Orbilius show you the answer.
- Click "look up" to open the vocabulary or verbs window for that word. You can then guess the ending and/or principal parts (in the verbs window) and/or definition (in the vocabulary window) - or you can just click "give up" to be told the answer at each or any point.
- Choose Verbs or Vocabulary from the Orbilius menu. If you're currently in the middle of a game based on that module, this has the same effect as "look up".
- Click "new game" to abandon this game and start another.
1.2 (1/5/01)
- Added hangman module
- Added cheesy sound effects (these don't seem to work under all Windows systems, for which you can be grateful)
- Some cosmetic improvements to Windows version
- Cumulative score now maintained across all three modules
- Assorted small improvements under the hood.
- Corrected default and enabled status of certain buttons under "random verb" option
- Assorted mystery glitches mysteriously sorted themselves.
- Verbs window made default
- Added "choose verb" and "random verb" options
- New option to restrict endings to level covered by particular Units
- Fixed "new form" algorithm's obsession with pluperfect subjunctive passive
- Eliminated annoying white backgrounds from certain text fields under Windows
- Some typoes in database corrected
- Added About box
- More Balloon Help (Mac version only)
- Cuddly anthropomorphic name.
- Dire and bodge-ridden first version. If you still have this, replace it with the new one.
- new grammar module for nouns, adjectives, and pronouns
- import your own vocab and verbs (for users of coursebooks other than Teach Yourself Latin)
- infinitives, participles, deponent and irregular verbs
- vocab and forms from Units of TYL beyond 16
- other suggestions gratefully received.
This software is free. Anyone can distribute it. Source code (REALBasic 2.1) available from Nick Lowe. Version 1.2. By reading this, you agree to exactly nothing. The author takes no responsibility either. What a merry carefree band are we.