BAO Team

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1 The Team
2 The first decade
3 Fan translation
4 Software/Game development
5 Hacking in the Philippines
6 BAO as of today
7 Members
8 External links

[edit] The Team

BAO, BAO 1984, BAO Team, Bastusan Area Organization; Beta, Alpha and Omega

A versatile and the only Filipino group who made major contribution in anime, fan translation, software/game development and hacking on the Internet. The group was classmates and friends since 1984 in The Gentle Shepherd School. They were the one of the first rom hackers who introduced EZjap (BAO's modified Japanese DOS) and using Norton Disk Editor, a simple hex editor. BAO was using EZJap since 1994 to play hentai games from ELF Corporation like Isaku and Aishimai. Leaders are kamuixtv, Cahos Ran, Galo and Alfa.

[edit] The first decade

This article took place in grade school to early high school years (1984 to 1994). The school held clubs for specified subjects, their class adviser required one but they joined three or more clubs without taking them seriously. The Gentle Shepherd School is the only school in their vicinity that offers computer curriculum that started with Commodore 64. The Computer club lead to the development of Batugan, a batch compiler, Pic2exe, an executable photo program and a virus-like data wiping program. These programs made them excelled in computer-based subjects.

[edit] Fan translation

EMIT in Tagalog version

The group was lucky to have SNES game copiers which were expensive and rare during that time (1993 to 1995). Game copiers can only be purchased at Greenhills, an upper-class district in the Philippines. The group immersed themselves on games like Dragon Ball Z, YuYu Hakusyo, Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Front Mission and other titles that have sequels on current consoles. They even held fighting game tournaments. The group considers younger gamers who have played the current sequels/remakes of these games unfortunate.

During the summer of 1994, the group started to become curious on how the game copier system works since it uses 3.5 micro-floppy diskette. They wondered if there can be a way to play SNES roms on a home PC. Their inquiry led them to Norton Disk Editor, a simple DOS hex editing tool. They noticed that the headers of a PC executable (.exe) and an SNES ROM have some similarities. They began experimenting on several SNES roms by changing the game-scenario script and game credits by deleting some of the game creators staff and replacing their own names. During that period, the IT industry was still in its early years and not everyone had Internet access. Because of this, the group didn't realize that others were doing the same thing and it was apparently too late for them to establish themselves as one of the pioneers in romhacking. Indeed, the romhacking culture became widely known at around 1996 onwards, the group actually began romhacking at around 1994, during the group's work on "EMIT" a Japanese-English reading and learning game for the SNES that was released only in Japan.

Chrono Trigger parody ending

The group does admit that at that time they only romhacked those games for parody, like changing heroes' names and storylines. An example would be the bad ending remark on their version of Chrono Trigger, changing the line "But the future refused to change" to one with a nasty meaning. One of the earlier hacking tools the group used was EZJap which allowed them to edit the Japanese text on certain games. Some of the better known ROM Hackers at that time and up until present have questioned the group's work and professed that Japanese DOS didn't existed, primarily because some of them have no access to other Asian applications at BAO's disposal.

Variable Geo (VG)
Romancing saga 3 -
Front Mission
Sailormoon: Another Story
Neon Genesis Evangelion hentai manga

[edit] Software/Game development

With the huge successes of Visual novel games, many doujin game creators also shifted for developing their own novels. After all, many of their creations were more of a reading than game, so it was natural for them to move this way. And with this background, DNML was born. As soon as Karin, the author of DNML, released on Project Angel Wing HomePage, it has spread wildly and is now acknowledged as a de-facto standard among doujin Visual Novel creators in Japan. In 1998, DNML was introduced in the English-speaking community by the anime news site, Anime Densetsu but it was abandoned because of the lack of documents that was written in Japanese. In 1999, BAO chose DNML as the easiest programming language for anime/hentai programming. They wrote some real-world applications for DNML such as the online examination. Later, the group launched DNML Network for the international audience. A Frontpage-like DNML editor was written by the group but was later discontinued because only a few people are interested with it. In 2002, The group developed a copy-protection for VCDs. It is only introduced in the country. On March 9, 2006 a follow-up version for DVDs was completed.

[edit] Hacking in the Philippines

In 1999, various Filipino hacking groups were formed on DALnet (#oneball) and Undernet (#isp, founded by which provided illegal internet access but was later closed down by Undernet). AOL and IBM can be accessed by using illegitimate credit cards to register new accounts. #isp and #easy is the home channel of Maku-kurei (Mark Cacho), ottobots (Ferdinand Rodriguez) and Eyestrain (Alvin Veroy). The "carding scene" raised media attention by Ernie Baron's Knowledge Power on ABS-CBN and Time-Asia magazine. BAO was aware with hacking incidents and questioned the abilities of these "local hackers". As a veteran in the field of computers, they want to make sure that every hacker is for real but most of the time they just fool aspirants or wannabes by giving them profane remarks. The group set a standard test by asking these so-called "hackers" to prove themselves but no one could verify if the test is for real or just another prank joke. Evilhero, Parknenok9, CIH and InnocentMan were assigned as watchers in the local hacking community. The group called Eyestrain a lamer because Time-Asia's article about Eyestrain does not meet the ‘hacking standards’.

Dividead Parody

BAO can also crack computer applications but they only do so for their own use only. One notable example is the hentai game, Dividead. They didn't pursue cracking because they don't want to label themselves like Razor 1911 and Kalisto. When carding became rampant in the country. Evilhero suggested to set another standard but the leaders disagreed and requested to extrapolate the information of these so-called hackers who are involved in the "carding scene". The group failed to dismantle the "carding scene" but they uncovered the identities of these "so-called hackers turned carders" by eavesdropping of JL and darkchii^ ^ whenever there's a gathering event in malls. The "carding scene" helped the group to aware themselves about the effects of "carding" with the existing Law. In late 2004, Evilhero revealed that a local broadband provider could be hacked by using administrative access. However he kept the information classified. Hacking activities in the country went downhill when the E-Commerce Law was passed in late 2001.

[edit] BAO as of today

The co-founded group Yaoi Dudes (YD), founded in 2001, is considered the successor of BAO. However, despite the inherited legacy of BAO they strive to establish their own name. In early 2006, they had a dry-run to modify the images of the PSP game Bleach: Heat the Soul 2. This project is on hold at the moment because of lack of development tools.

[edit] Members

Ryan Tuaño
Galo Matagay III
Timothy Joseph Cruz
Alfa Capili
Nestor Maningding
Armando Tadeo
Alan Salcedo
Mark Villa Abrille
Lino Zingapan (deceased)
Erickson Perez
Edwin Micu
Honey Liz Roa

Neo-members

Carlito Bedrijo Jr.
Ralph Ronormil Umali
Ochie Yogawen
Jeseth Licardo
Reynaldo Morelos
Erlou Maturan
Ernesto Liwanag

[edit] External links

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