NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Id Software

id Software (IPA: [ɪd] officially, though originally [aɪ di]) is an American computer game developer based in Mesquite, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. The company was founded by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack (no relation to John Carmack). It is now considered the most influential of the many game development companies in the Dallas area, known as the Dallas Gaming Mafia. Logo for id Software. ... A privately-held corporation is one whose ownership shares are not publicly traded. ... This article is the current U.S. Collaboration of the Week. ... February 1 is the 32nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Mesquite is a suburb of Dallas, Texas, located in Dallas County and Kaufman County, Texas. ... Official language(s) No Official Language See languages of Texas Capital Austin Largest city Houston Area Ranked 2nd - Total 261,797 sq mi (678,051 kmÂ²) - Width 773 miles (1,244 km) - Length 790 miles (1,270 km) - % water 2. ... John D. Carmack II (born August 20, 1970) is a widely recognized figure in the video game industry. ... Alfonso John Romero (born October 28, 1967 in Colorado Springs, Colorado) is a well-known game designer, programmer, and developer in the video game industry. ... Tom Hall Tom Hall is a game designer born in Wisconsin. ... Adrian Carmack (born on May 5, 1969) is one of the four founders of id Software and has worked there as an artist since its creation. ... This does not cite its references or sources. ... For the album by the Kaiser Chiefs see Employment (album) Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. ... A website (or Web site) is a collection of web pages, images, videos and other digital assets and hosted on a particular domain or subdomain on the World Wide Web. ... Not to be confused with the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the â€œInternational Phonetic Alphabetâ€. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... A video game developer is a software developer (a business or an individual) that creates video games. ... Mesquite is a suburb of Dallas, Texas, located in Dallas County and Kaufman County, Texas. ... Official language(s) No Official Language See languages of Texas Capital Austin Largest city Houston Area Ranked 2nd - Total 261,797 sq mi (678,051 kmÂ²) - Width 773 miles (1,244 km) - Length 790 miles (1,270 km) - % water 2. ... Nickname: Big D Location in the state of Texas Country United States State Texas Counties Dallas, Collin, Denton, Kaufman, and Rockwall Incorporated 2 February 1856 - Mayor Laura Miller Area - City 385. ... Softdisk is a software and Internet company based in Shreveport, Louisiana. ... A game programmer is a software engineer who primarily develops computer or video games or related software (such as game development tools). ... John D. Carmack II (born August 20, 1970) is a widely recognized figure in the video game industry. ... Alfonso John Romero (born October 28, 1967 in Colorado Springs, Colorado) is a well-known game designer, programmer, and developer in the video game industry. ... A game designer is a person who designs games. ... Tom Hall Tom Hall is a game designer born in Wisconsin. ... The definition of an artist is wide-ranging and covers a broad spectrum of activities to do with creating art, practising the arts and/or demonstrating an art. ... Adrian Carmack (born on May 5, 1969) is one of the four founders of id Software and has worked there as an artist since its creation. ... The Dallas Gaming Mafia is not a formal organization, but rather a term used to refer to the large number of video game developers located in the Dallas, Texas, USA area. ...

History

The founders of id Software met in the offices of Softdisk developing multiple games for Softdisk's monthly publishing. These included Dangerous Dave and other titles. In September 1990, John Carmack discovered an efficient way to perform rapid side-scrolling graphics on the PC, a technical feat previously only achieved on consoles. Upon making this breakthrough, Carmack and Hall stayed up late into the night making a replica of the first level of the popular 1990 NES game Super Mario Bros. 3, inserting stock graphics of Romero's Dangerous Dave character in lieu of Mario. When Romero saw the demo, entitled "Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement", he realized that Carmack's breakthrough could mean fame and fortune, and the id Software guys immediately began moonlighting, going so far as to "borrow" company computers that were not being used over the weekends and at nights while they whipped together a full-scale carbon copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 for the PC, hoping to license it to Nintendo. Softdisk is a software and Internet company based in Shreveport, Louisiana. ... Dangerous Dave is a 1988 computer game by John Romero. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Four different video game consoles from different generations. ... â€œNESâ€ redirects here. ... Super Mario Bros. ... Demo disc released with a magazine. ... Nintendo Company, Limited (ä»»å¤©å ‚ or ãƒ‹ãƒ³ãƒ†ãƒ³ãƒ‰ãƒ¼ NintendÅ; NASDAQ: NTDOY, TYO: 7974 usually referred to as simply Nintendo, or Big N ) is a multinational corporation founded on September 23, 1889[1] in Kyoto, Japan by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce handmade hanafuda cards. ...

Despite their work, Nintendo turned them down, saying they had no interest in expanding to the PC market. Around this time, Scott Miller of Apogee Software learned of the group and their exceptional talent, having played one of John Romero's Softdisk games, Pyramids of Egypt, and contacted Romero under the guise of multiple fan letters that Romero came to realize all originated from the same address. When he confronted Miller, Miller explained that the deception was necessary since companies at that time were very protective of their talent and it was the only way he could get Romero to initiate contact with him. Miller suggested that they develop shareware games that he would distribute. As a result, the id Software team began the development of Commander Keen, a Mario-style side-scrolling game for the PC, once again "borrowing" company computers to work on it at odd hours at the lake house at which they lived in Shreveport, Louisiana. On December 14, 1990, the first episode was released as shareware by Miller's company, Apogee, and orders began rolling in. Shortly after this, Softdisk management learned of the team's deception and suggested that they form a new company together, but the administrative staff at Softdisk threatened to resign if such an arrangement were made. In a legal settlement, the team was required to provide a game to Softdisk every two months for a certain period of time, but they would do so on their own. On February 1, 1991, id Software was founded. Scott Miller is a game programmer, producer, and level designer who is probably most famous for founding Apogee Software in 1987 and co_founding Gathering of Developers in 1998. ... Corporate logo of Apogee Software Apogee Software, Ltd. ... Look up shareware in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Yorp redirects here. ... This article is the current U.S. Collaboration of the Week. ... December 14 is the 348th day of the year (349th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... MCMXC redirects here; for the Enigma album, see MCMXC a. ... February 1 is the 32nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

The shareware distribution method was initially employed by id Software through Apogee Software to sell their products, such as the Commander Keen, Wolfenstein and Doom games. They would release the first part of their trilogy as shareware, then sell the other two installments by mail order. Only later (about the time of the release of Doom II) did id release their games via more traditional shrink-wrapped boxes in stores (through other game publishers). It is likely that id Software has been the most successful shareware publisher to date. Mail order is a term which describes the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

id Technology

Starting with their first shareware game series, Commander Keen, id Software has licensed the core source code for the game, or what is more commonly known as the engine. Holding a weekend session with prospective buyers, id Software put together and impromptu game known as "Wac-Man" to demonstrate not only the technical prowess of the Keen engine, but also how it worked internally.

Since then, id Software has licensed the DOOM engine, the Quake, Quake II, and Quake III engines, as well as their latest technology that was used in making Doom 3. These engines have powered numerous notable titles, with their most successful engine being the Quake III engine.

In conjunction with his self-professed affinity for sharing source code, John Carmack has open-sourced all of the major id Software engines under the GPL license. Historically, the source code for each engine has been released once the code base is 5 years old. Consequently, many home grown projects have sprung up porting the code to different platforms, cleaning up the source code, or providing major modifications to the core engine. Wolfenstein3D, DOOM, and Quake engine ports are ubiquitous to nearly all platforms capable of running games, such as hand-held PCs, iPods, the Nintendo DS, and more. Impressive core modifications include Quake Tenebrae which adds stencil shadow volumes into the original Quake engine. Another such project is ioQuake3, which maintains a goal of cleaning up the source code, adding features, and fixing bugs. The GNU logo The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a widely-used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. ...

The source code to the Quake III engine was previously supposed to have been released around the end of 2004. However, John Carmack announced that the GPL release had been put on hold in order to maintain a grace period, since the Quake III engine was still being licensed to commercial customers who would otherwise become upset over the sudden loss in value of their recent investment. The Quake III source code was released under the GPL on August 19, 2005. The GNU logo The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a widely-used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. ... The GNU logo The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a widely-used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. ... August 19 is the 231st day of the year (232nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

id Software has been the first company to publicly state they will not support the Wii. Notable is the fact that the relationship between Nintendo and id Software has never been strong. This may be because Nintendo heavily censored the violent games that id Software makes, as well as poor sales of Nintendo System titles such as Doom 64 and the Commander Keen series for the GBC. The Wii (pronounced as the pronoun we, IPA: ) is the fifth home video game console released by Nintendo. ... Doom 64 is a video game for the Nintendo 64 released by Midway Games in 1997. ... Commander Keen is a series of video games developed by id Software in the early 1990s, which was successful at replicating the side-scrolling action of the NES Super Mario Bros. ...

Game Series

Commander Keen

The Commander Keen series, a platform game introducing one of the first smooth side-scrolling game engines for the PC, brought id Software into the gaming mainstream. The game was very successful and spawned a whole series of titles. It was also the series of id Software that designer Tom Hall was most affiliated with. Yorp redirects here. ... A simple platform sequence from the game Wonder Boy Platform game, or platformer, is a video game genre characterized by jumping to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles. ... A game engine is the core software component of a computer or video game or other interactive application with real-time graphics. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Tom Hall Tom Hall is a game designer born in Wisconsin. ...

Wolfenstein 3D

The company's breakout product was 1992's Wolfenstein 3D, a first person shooter (FPS) with smooth 3D graphics that were unprecedented in computer games, and with violent game play that many gamers found engaging. After essentially founding an entire genre with this game, id created Doom, Doom II, Quake, Quake II, Quake III Arena and Doom 3 (id Software did not make Quake IV). Each of these first person shooters featured progressively higher levels of graphical technology (and progressively higher minimum system requirements). 1992 1992 in games 1991 in video gaming 1993 in video gaming Notable events of 1992 in video gaming. ... Wolfenstein 3D (commonly abbreviated to Wolf 3D) is the computer game that started the first person shooter genre on the PC. It was created by id Software and published by Apogee Software on May 5, 1992. ... A first-person shooter (FPS) is a computer or video game where the players on-screen view of the game world simulates that of the character, and there is some element of shooting involved. ... Doom (or DOOM)[1] is a 1993 computer game by id Software that is among the landmark titles in the first-person shooter genre. ... Doom II: Hell on Earth is a first-person shooter video game created by id Software. ... Zombies attacking the player. ... Quake II, released on December 6, 1997, is a first person shooter computer game developed by id Software and distributed by Activision. ... Quake III Arena or Quake 3, abbreviated as Q3A or Q3, is a multiplayer first-person shooter computer and video game released in 2000. ... Doom 3 is a science fiction horror first-person shooter computer game developed by id Software and published by Activision on August 3, 2004. ... Quake IV is the fourth in the series of Quake first-person shooter computer games and is being developed by Raven Software and distributed by Activision. ...

Doom

Shortly following their release of Wolfenstein 3D, in 1993 id released Doom which would again set new standards for graphic quality and graphic violence in computer gaming. Id redefined the benchmark for realism for the FPS genre, which they popularized with Wolfenstein 3D. Doom featured a sci-fi/horror setting with graphic quality that had never been seen on personal computers or even video game consoles (in fact, the later console ports of the game featured notably poorer graphics than the original DOS version). Doom became a cultural phenomenon and its violent theme would eventually launch a new wave of criticism decrying the dangers of violence in video games. Doom was ported to numerous platforms, inspired many knock-offs and was eventually followed by the technically similar Doom II. Though popularizing the genre with Wolfenstein 3D, id really made its mark in video game history with the shareware release of Doom, and eventually revisited the theme of this game in 2004 with their release of Doom 3. Notable events of 1993 in computer and video games. ... Doom (or DOOM)[1] is a 1993 computer game by id Software that is among the landmark titles in the first-person shooter genre. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Horror fiction is, broadly, fiction in any medium intended to scare, unsettle, or horrify the reader. ... Four different video game consoles from different generations. ... In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed (e. ... Instructions on how to use the directory command. ... Computer and video games have been the subject of frequent controversy and censorship, due to the depiction of graphic violence, sexual themes, racism, advertising, eavesdropping, consumption of illegal drugs, consumption of alcohol or tobacco, propaganda or profanity in some games. ... Doom II: Hell on Earth is a first-person shooter video game created by id Software. ... Look up shareware in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... 2004 2004 in games 2003 in video gaming 2005 in video gaming Notable events of 2004 in video gaming. ... Doom 3 is a science fiction horror first-person shooter computer game developed by id Software and published by Activision on August 3, 2004. ...

Quake

The June 22, 1996 release of Quake marked the second milestone in id history. Quake combined a cutting edge fully 3D engine with an excellent art style to create what was at the time regarded as a feast for the eyes. Audio was not neglected either, having recruited Trent Reznor to facilitate unique sound-effects and ambient music for the game. Furthermore, Quake's main innovation—the capability to play a deathmatch (competitive gameplay between living opponents instead of against computer-run characters) over the Internet (especially through the add-on QuakeWorld) seared the title into the minds of gamers as another smash hit. June 22 is the 173rd day of the year (174th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 192 days remaining. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... Zombies attacking the player. ... Michael Trent Reznor (born May 17, 1965) is an American musician, singer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and a modern day Renaissance man. ...

Company Name

Note the lowercase id, the correct pronunciation of which is a much-argued subject. The current official pronunciation is id as in "did" or "kid", which refers to the id as a psychological concept developed by Sigmund Freud. Evidence of this can be found as early as Wolfenstein 3D with the statement "that's Id, as in the id, ego, and superego in the psyche" appearing in the game's documentation. Even today, id's History page makes a direct reference to Freud. Image File history File links Id-wolf-logo-wi. ... The ego, superego, and id are the tripartite divisions of the psyche in psychoanalytic theory compartmentalizing the sphere of mental activity into three energetic components: the ego being the organized conscious mediator between the internal person and the external identity. ... Sigmund Freud (born Sigismund Freud) May 6, 1856 â€“ September 23, 1939; (IPA: ) was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who co-founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. ... Wolfenstein 3D (commonly abbreviated to Wolf 3D) is the computer game that started the first person shooter genre on the PC. It was created by id Software and published by Apogee Software on May 5, 1992. ... Sigmund Freud (born Sigismund Freud) May 6, 1856 â€“ September 23, 1939; (IPA: ) was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who co-founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. ...

Originally however, both letters were capitalised as an acronym for "Ideas from the Deep", and because of this many argue that it should still be pronounced "eye-dee". The I was later made lowercase in the release of the second Commander Keen series, eventually followed by the D. Since Wolfenstein 3D used the "id" pronunciation together with the mixed-case "iD", many argue that the capitalization is irrelevant and purely a stylistic choice. Image File history File links Id-doom-logo-wi. ...

Key figures

In 2003, the book Masters of Doom chronicled the development of id Software, concentrating on the personalities and interaction of John Carmack and John Romero. Below are the key people involved with id's success. Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture is a book by David Kushner about id Software and its influence on popular culture, focusing chiefly on John Romero and John Carmack. ...

John Carmack

The lead programmer for id Software is John Carmack, whose skill at 3D programming is widely recognized in the software industry. He is the last of the original founders still employed by the company. John D. Carmack II (born August 20, 1970) is a widely recognized figure in the video game industry. ... A lead programmer is a software engineer in charge of one or more software projects. ... John D. Carmack II (born August 20, 1970) is a widely recognized figure in the video game industry. ... 3D computer graphics are different from 2D computer graphics in that a three-dimensional representation of geometric data is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images. ... Computer programming (often shortened to programming or coding) is the process of writing, testing, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. ...

John Romero

John Romero, who was fired after the release of Quake, later formed the ill-fated company Ion Storm. There, he became infamous through the development of Daikatana, which got mediocre reception from reviewers and gamers alike upon release. Romero now heads the Cyberathlete Professional League Board of Directors and is currently developing a MMOG for his new company, Slipgate Ironworks. Alfonso John Romero (born October 28, 1967 in Colorado Springs, Colorado) is a well-known game designer, programmer, and developer in the video game industry. ... A solar wind is a stream of particles (mostly high-energy protons ~ 500 keV) which are ejected from the upper atmosphere of a star (in the case of a star other than the Earths Sun, it may be called a stellar wind instead). ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... The Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) was founded in 1997 by Angel Munoz as a professional sports tournament specializing in computer videogames. ... A massive multiplayer online game (MMOG) is a type of computer game that enables hundreds or thousands of players to simultaneously interact in a game world they are connected to via the Internet. ... Alfonso John Romero (born October 28, 1967 in Colorado Springs, Colorado) is a well-known game designer, programmer, and developer in the video game industry. ...

Both Tom Hall and John Romero have reputations as designers and idea men who have helped shape some of the key PC gaming titles of the 1990s.

Tom Hall

Tom Hall left id Software during the early days of Doom development (but not before he had some impact: he was responsible, for example, for the inclusion of teleporters in the game). He was let go before the shareware release of Doom and then went to work for Apogee, developing Rise of the Triad with the "Developers of Incredible Power". When he finished work on that game, he found he was not compatible with the Prey development team at Apogee, and therefore left to join his ex-id compadre John Romero at Ion Storm. Hall has frequently commented that if id Software ever sold him the rights to Commander Keen he would immediately develop another Keen title. Tom Hall Tom Hall is a game designer born in Wisconsin. ... Rise of the Triad: Dark War (shortened to RotT) is a first person shooter computer game, first released on December 21, 1994 by Apogee Software (later known as 3D Realms). ... Prey is a first-person shooter video game developed by Human Head Studios and produced by 3D Realms, using a modified version of the Doom 3 engine. ... A solar wind is a stream of particles (mostly high-energy protons ~ 500 keV) which are ejected from the upper atmosphere of a star (in the case of a star other than the Earths Sun, it may be called a stellar wind instead). ...

American McGee

American McGee was a level designer for Doom II, The Ultimate Doom, Quake, and Quake II. After he was fired ^[1] during the development of Quake II, he moved to Rogue Entertainment where he gained industry notoriety with the development of his own game American McGee's Alice. Rogue Entertainment operated in the same building as id Software. When Rogue shut down, he became president of his own company, The Mauretania Import Export Company, which recently released the critically panned game Bad Day L.A..^{[citation needed]} American McGee (born December 13, 1972) is an American game designer. ... A level designer is a person who creates levels, challenges or missions for computer and/or video games using a specific set of programs. ... Rogue Entertainment was a computer game developer based in Dallas, Texas, which was active in the late 1990s. ... This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article. ... ... American McGee presents: Bad Day L.A. is a video game by American McGee. ...

Games by id Software

Developer

Yorp redirects here. ... Rescue Rover is a computer game from id Software published by Softdisk. ... Rescue Rover is a computer puzzle game from id Software, published by Softdisk in 1991. ... Hovertank 3D is a computer game from id Software published by Softdisk in April 1991. ... Catacomb 3D, is a series of computer games from id Software, published by Softdisk publishing that was released in November 1991. ... Wolfenstein 3D (commonly abbreviated to Wolf 3D) is the computer game that started the first person shooter genre on the PC. It was created by id Software and published by Apogee Software on May 5, 1992. ... Spear of Destiny, often also called Spear, Wolfenstein: Spear of Destiny or just SoD, is the sequel to id Softwares first person shooter Wolfenstein 3D, which was first published on September 18, 1992 by FormGen Corporation. ... Doom (or DOOM)[1] is a 1993 computer game by id Software that is among the landmark titles in the first-person shooter genre. ... The cover artwork for Doom II, painted by fantasy artist Gerald Brom, depicts the Doom space marine firing a shotgun at a gigantic Cyberdemon. ... The Master Levels for Doom II was released on 26 December 1995 by id Software as an expansion pack for the computer game Doom II. The CD contains twenty WAD files created by various authors under contract. ... Final Doom is a first-person shooter computer game that uses the game engine, items and characters from Doom II. It consists of two 32-level megawads (level files), TNT: Evilution by brothers Dario and Milo Casali and TeamTNT, and The Plutonia Experiment by the Casali brothers. ... Zombies attacking the player. ... Quake II, released on December 6, 1997, is a first person shooter computer game developed by id Software and distributed by Activision. ... Quake III Arena or Quake 3, abbreviated as Q3A or Q3, is a multiplayer first-person shooter computer and video game released in 2000. ... Doom 3 is a science fiction horror first-person shooter computer game developed by id Software and published by Activision on August 3, 2004. ...

Publisher / Producer

Heretic is a fantasy first-person shooter computer game created by Raven Software, published by id Software, and distributed by GT Interactive in 1994. ... Raven Software is a computer game software developer based in Madison, Wisconsin. ... Hexen: Beyond Heretic (or Hexen) is a first-person shooter computer game developed by Raven Software, published by id Software, and distributed by GT Interactive beginning on October 30, 1995. ... Hexen II is a first person shooter computer game developed by Raven Software from 1996 to 1997, published by id Software and distributed by Activision. ... Ritual Entertainment is a computer game software developer established in 1996 and based in Dallas, Texas. ... Rogue Entertainment was a computer game developer based in Dallas, Texas, which was active in the late 1990s. ... Gray Matter Interactive Studios, Inc. ... Return to Castle Wolfenstein is a first person shooter computer game published by Activision and released on November 20, 2001. ... Nerve Software is an American video game developer. ... Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (ET) is a freeware first-person shooter (FPS) computer game, and a standalone sequel to Return to Castle Wolfenstein, created by Splash Damage. ... Although only the blue player in the centre takes a direct hit, everyone within the circle takes damage. ... Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil is a first-person shooter expansion pack for the 2004 video game, Doom 3. ... Quake 4 is the fourth title in the series of Quake FPS computer games. ... Doom RPG is a mobile phone game developed by Fountainhead Entertainment. ... Orcs & Elves is the title of a cellular phone video game, developed by John Carmack. ...

Additional reading

Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture is a book by David Kushner about id Software and its influence on popular culture, focusing chiefly on John Romero and John Carmack. ...

References

External links

MobyGames is a website devoted to cataloging computer and video games, both past and present. ...

Articles

Categories: Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | Companies established in 1991 | Video game companies | Companies based in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex | Doom David Kushner is a writer who has contributed to magazines like The New York Times, Rolling Stone and Salon. ... IEEE Spectrum is a magazine edited by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. ... GameSpy, also known as GameSpy Industries, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game Web sites and provides online video game-related services and software. ... 3D Realms is the name of a computer game publisher and developer based in Garland, Texas. ...

Contents

History GA_googleFillSlot("encyclopedia_square");