Summary: This was a message I sent to David Shadoff during the development of TurboRip! I saved it and thought to include it here just for the hell of it as it provides a bit more project history! It was like a nerdy pitch of sorts looking back on it, heh. ;)

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Hehe, I'm surprised you didn't know, David.

Hey, do you remember about a year ago, right after I released the Ys IV patch, I sent you an email asking about how difficult was it to read a CD-Rom sector and how I wanted some sample source code for such a task ?

I had begun research on an idea I was toying with at the time, but ASPI programming looked very intimidating. But yeah, this was related to that... Around late last month, I started working on it again after having given up for so long, and managed to complete it after all in about 3 weeks. Lots of research with technical docs was involved such as from the t10 group that handles the MMC standard that most modern optical devices are compliant with. Not very fun at all...

Alright, so what is it...? Well, it's called "TurboRip." With TurboRip, you take your original PC Engine/TG-16 CD-Rom, insert it into your best CD-RW/DVD-RW Reader device, and rip/dump/extract it to a perfect ISO/WAV/CUE image file set. I know of no professional software that ever did this correctly. All of them, as soon as they reach the PREGAP after the first audio track, on the transition to the second data track, they FAIL in error, CDRWIN, everything! You could only ever dump a solid image, as one giant BIN file. Well, not anymore!

Now why was this important to Ys IV ?? First, it will guarantee the correct size of EVERY track file, enforcing the 2 & 3 second PREGAP rules for transitioning tracks and not failing. Second, it's not really relevant anymore since it may never happen, but there are audio tracks with Japanese on them that an Ys fan named Justus Johnston was going to produce dubs for. So, the idea was that you would download the separate translated/dubbed wave files and just replace them in your ISO/WAV/CUE file set. In other words, to perform a patching of the dubs, a solid BIN/CUE, NRG, etc. image would not be acceptable! You'd need the image in file-per-track mode (ISO/WAV/CUE). Unfortunately, Justus may never finish the dubs after all, but nonetheless, I wanted to finish this tool to address the issue of there being no professional software that correctly handles the PREGAPs when dealing with mixed-mode PC-Engine/TG-16 discs... 

Another benefit that I should add is that by guaranteeing the correct size for data track 2, you will always meet the text patcher's criteria for having a correctly sized MODE1/2048 data track! Not all drives are equal and they don't always end at the same sectors when dealing with PREGAPs, as I learned with a test I conducted with a friend. This is why, sometimes, BIN/CUE or other track files are slightly bigger or smaller depending on who extracted them.

Well, what I'm trying to say is that this will guarantee consistent ripping/extracting results with the tricky transitioning tracks. Lemme explain with a test I conducted:

I have an original Dracula X CD-Rom. With my YAMAHA drive, the data track, track 2, goes from sector 3890 to 14036 using CDRWIN's "Select Sectors" feature in the Extract Disc Dialog. However, if I try to read up to 14037, I hit the pregap area, and the drive cannot read it, so CDRWIN errors out... Now, you would think this is true for everyone, but it's not. My friend tried the same test, and CDRWIN was able to read track 2 from 3890 to 14038. CDRWIN is unable to read at sector 14039 for HIM! So what happens is, on two different systems, you get two differently sized images, thus inconsistent results. TurboRip, on the other hand, will enforce the correct sector length when it comes to PREGAPs, and fill the end of the track with nulls. So every track will be the correct size, bottomline.

Finally, why will this be useful for Sony's PSP ? A few weeks ago, someone [Bernie Lindell] approached me for help in getting Dracula X to work on his PSP with the PCEP emulator that's available for it (once you apply a hack to the system, that is!). Long story short, I helped him out and as such, I decided to extend the functionality of my program to directly produce a properly prepared image for use with the PCEP emulator! So, if you run TurboRip with the "/PSP" parameter using your original disc, it will produce an ISO/MP3/TOC image file set in a folder. You copy that to your USB memory stick, then attach the stick back to your PSP and if you do it all right, you'll be able to play it fully with sound on a portable system!

Anyway, I was a bit long-winded here, and I have to write up a bunch of stuff for this still. You get the idea. It's basically the perfect "original PCE/TG-16 CD-Rom to ISO/WAV/CUE image file set" utility! You'll be able to backup all your originals, prepare them for use with emulators for Sony's PSP or Microsoft's X-BOX (I have that option, too), and/or be able to perfectly patch Xak III or Ys IV with no sweat. Oh, and with the TOC database, it'll detect your original disc and properly title it using SquareSoft74's naming standards when it writes all the track files to boot!

-NightWolve