Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Let's Burn TurboGrafx-CD/PC Engine CD-ROM² Games on a Mac

After recently acquiring a new Analogue Duo, I set about attempting to burn CD-ROM discs to play the TurboGrafx-CD and PC Engine CD-ROM² games on the new console.

A Analogue Duo console with a CD sticking part way out the CD slot and a HuCard of Bomberman '94 sitting in front of the HuCard slot

Here are the steps I took to burn these games to disc for use in a Analogue Duo console using macOS Ventura(13.6.2).

Locate the Games

The best place to find these games is on archive.org. There are many collections of TurboGrafx-CD and PC Engine CD-ROM² games to download. One such collection is TurboGrafx-CD Champion Collection. So grab the games you want and on to the next step.

Download Burn

We will be using Burn as the CD burning program for this task. So download this program and proceed to the next step.

Prepare Your Files

To make this work properly, you want to have a single .bin and .cue file.

A computer window showing a single .bin and .cue file for Super Air Zonk

For some games you will find multiple .bin files. For these, you will need to merge them into one .bin file using binmerge.

A computer window showing a multiple .bin files and a single .cue file for Super Raiden

To do this, you will..

  1. Download the binmerge file from Github.
  2. Put this file in the same folder with all your .bin files and your .cue file.
  3. Navigate to this folder in your Terminal.
  4. Run this command..
    for f in *.cue; do ./binmerge "$f" "$f.new"; done

You should now have a new .bin and .cue file that will be used when burning the game.

Mac folder showing multiple files including the newly created .bin and .cue files highlighted for Super Raiden

Time to Burn

We will now load the .cue file in the Burn app by launching the app, going to the ‘Copy’ tab, clicking on ‘Open’ and selecting the .cue file of the game you want to burn. You can also just drag the .cue file into the Burn window after you select ‘Copy’.

The Burn app window with the .cue file for Super Air Zonk loaded and ready to burn

We will be burning this file to a CD-R. So once your files are loaded up in Burn, insert the blank CD into your burner. When you are ready, click ‘Burn’. Now you can select your CD burner and speed. I have run all my copies at full speed and have not had any issues. Your milage may vary.

Let’s Play Some Games

Once your burn is completed, eject the disc and load it up in your Analogue Duo. It should be recognized and display on the menu.

I assume these games will work in an old Turbo Duo or PC Engine Duo, but I cannot confirm this.

Enjoy!