Buying a Kindle 2nd Gen

 I just got my first Kindle, a Kindle 2 (D00511) on ebay. It's great, but getting such an old model—2009-2011 or so—required some detective work to get a good workflow figured out. I'll explain the process here, both for others and for my own use in case I need to set it up again.I decided to get this model because someone gave me an old "broken" one with a dead battery. At some point I decided to look into replacing the battery and ordered one off ebay. Replacing it I learned how to remove the back panel the hard way, after pressing too hard on the top plastic piece with my thumbs broke the screen, though someone had recommended doing that. Apparently Amazon dropped the left-hand page advance button that this one has so that's what led me to getting another one. And that one understandably had a swollen battery so the one I had ordered for the first one came in handy, and now I knew how to replace it properly.

Setting up my computer to get books on it tooks some detective work. The "whispernet" the device originally used is gone so I can't connect directly to Amazon from the device. Instead, I use Calibre on my computer to transfer books from the library or other sources to the Kindle. Since I can't sign in to any Amazon account from the Kindle, I have to check ebooks out from the library and then de-DRM the EPUB download through a couple plugins in Calibre to get the old Kindle to accept them.

Here's what I had to do (on Mac) to get books into the right format to read on the device:

1. First install Calibre. I'm currently using version 9.0.
2. Install DeDRM plugin for Calibre by clicking Settings > Plugins > Plugin from file, after having downloaded the plugin zip file from the link. Don't unzip the file, Calibre will use it as it is. The latest version is v7.2.1 as of this writing.
3. Then download and install DeACSM plugin, version 0.0.16 (version 1.0 threw errors for me). Again, don't unzip the zip file. Once the plugin is installed, double click on it to authorize the plugin. See the options in the Leseratte post. I used an Adobe account I have through work, which can be risky as he explains.
4. Restart Calibre and it's all set.

Now to get books:

1. Create a Libby account and add your local library where you have a library card (get one if you don't have one).
2. Once you've checked out a book, choose Manage Loan > Read with > EPUB. This will download a file to your computer.
3. Open Calibre and drag the downloaded file into the Calibre Library window. It will take a moment to automatically authorize the epub and basically 'unlock' it to read outside of Adobe Digital Editions app.
4. Convert the epub file to MOBI.
5. Upload the MOBI file to the Kindle and it should be ready to read!