Kobo Sage - Calibre 3.48

[777Knight]

I searched for a related topic but couldn't find one which answers my issue.

I have an old iMac (2011) running High Sierra on which is installed calibre 3.48.

As I'm retired and the iMac still works fine I've no intension of buying a new machine. :-)

That means I cannot upgrade Calibre version past 3.48.

I installed the Kobo utilities plugin but the Extended plugin requires a newer version of Calibre.

My old Amazon Paperwhite (6th Generation) connects happily with this Calibre version but I've not been so lucky with the new Kobo Sage.

I tried swithching out a couple of USB-C cables but to no avail.

Has anyone managed to connect a Kobo Sage to Calibre 3.48 or know how I might get it to do so given my setup.

Thanks.

[DarthV]

Maybe try installing a linux or windows virtual machine just for a newer version of calibre? Probably a less work intensive way to do it, but that should work :P

[rtiangha]

You could try checking the "Attempt to support newer firmware" option in the "Metadata, on device & advanced" tab of the KoboTouchExtended plugin so it might be fine. I don't think I've seen a warning against doing otherwise in the last few years, but you might want to ensure that you're running the last version supported by Calibre 3 first (according to my installation that I keep around on an older Intel Cherry Trail machine, it's 3.4.4). But Calibre 3 may not have a Sage driver and if that's the case, then you're SOL. But it's worth a try.

A little advanced, but for a free solution, you could try installing Virtualbox and installing a Linux virtual machine (Ubuntu might be the easiest), install the Linux version of Calibre 5 on that, then enable USB passthrough and connect your Sage that way. You'll need a lot of free disk space though since it's an entire OS worth of data, (i.e maybe 5GB+ plus space for books).

[Sirtel]

Unfortunately you need the latest Calibre for the Sage. 3.48 isn't going to work.

[John F]

777knight, are you just using Calibre to transfer books, or are you doing collections, updating metadata, ...?

[Lynx-lynx]

would Calibre companion be an option, that is could it be used as a work around?

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=288402
https://faq.calibrecompanion.co/

mmm ... maybe not

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

would Calibre companion be an option, that is could it be used as a work around?

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=288402
https://faq.calibrecompanion.co/

mmm ... maybe not

Last I’d checked Calibre Companion didn’t play with Kobos, granted it’s been awhile. B

OP might be able to use Sherman’s Kobo Uncaged though I’m not sure if the Calibre app would still need to support the device connecting to it wirelessly or if Calibre would be satisfied and just consider it as a device, the plugins might be able to do the rest.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=320149

Though a obvious and much simpler solution would be to trade in the iMac for whatever Apple would give for it, and get an M1 Mac Mini, they start at 700 USD so not cheap but it’d definitely be an upgrade to a 2011 iMac. And it’d be easy to find a cheap monitor.

Yes I’m aware OP doesn’t want to get a new computer. But sometimes the right advice is advice one doesn’t want to hear.

[Skydog]

deleted

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by 777Knight

I searched for a related topic but couldn't find one which answers my issue.

I have an old iMac (2011) running High Sierra on which is installed calibre 3.48.

As I'm retired and the iMac still works fine I've no intension of buying a new machine. :-)

That means I cannot upgrade Calibre version past 3.48.

I installed the Kobo utilities plugin but the Extended plugin requires a newer version of Calibre.

My old Amazon Paperwhite (6th Generation) connects happily with this Calibre version but I've not been so lucky with the new Kobo Sage.

I tried swithching out a couple of USB-C cables but to no avail.

Has anyone managed to connect a Kobo Sage to Calibre 3.48 or know how I might get it to do so given my setup.

It isn't going to work. To work with an device, calibre has to recognise it. That means it has to have the ids for the device coded somewhere so that calibre know what the device is and how to handle it. No device released since calibre 3.48 will be recognised. I assume that the 6th gen Paperwhite was released before then.

There are some alternatives:

• As @rtiangha suggested, run calibre in a Linux virtual machine. That isn't as bad an idea as it might sound at first. If the MAC can handle it, it allows you to keep up to date with calibre without worrying about your main OS.
• Use the Folder Device driver. This allows you to mount any directory as a device. Calibre will scan that directory for books. But, it will not recognise it as a Kobo device, so you will not get the functions that the KoboTouch driver offers or be able to use the Kobo Utilities plugin.
• Use the User Defined USB driver. This lets you define any attached device as a device for calibre. You need to configure the device ids. Calibre will then treat the ereader as a generic USBMSD device. Which means it functions pretty much as the Folder Device does except that calibre will automatically detect it when the device is plugged in.

If there is actually some demand, I might consider creating a driver that adds the device ids and can be installed in older calibre. I did this for, I think, calibre version 1.48 for whatever Kobo device was the first released after calibre version 2 was released. That allowed it to be used with Windows XP. But, as far as I can tell, very few people actually used it, so I'm not sure if it is worth the effort. And it would not add function that has been added to the driver since the version of calibre it was running with. That might mean it is not going to work for the Sage. I haven't checked, and I honestly don't have much interest in to checking.

[RobertJSawyer]

Originally Posted by davidfor

If there is actually some demand, I might consider creating a driver that adds the device ids and can be installed in older calibre.

Hi, David. Your time is valuable indeed, but I'd certainly be grateful for a driver that could be installed in calbre 4.23.

I am sticking with Windows 7 32-bit. I do all my writing (as does George R.R. Martin, and some other professional writers) with WordStar for DOS (although I use version 7.0 and George prefers 4.0). My reasons are here: https://sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm

I've tried all the major DOS emulators that run under Windows (DOSBox, vDos, vDosPlus, and DOSBox-x, and indeed I maintain a web page on using WordStar under vDosPlus, but none of the emulations run nearly as fast as the NTVDM on a 32-bit machine (NTVDM won't run at all on 64-bit machines), and the speed does make a real difference when you're zipping back-and-forth in the 100,000-word novels I write. Every other application is secondary to my use of my computer for writing, so I won't be upgrading beyond Windows 7 for years to come.

On the other hand, I'm quite tempted to upgrade (or supplement) my trusty Kobo Clara HD with the new Libra 2 -- but the lack of a driver for calibre 4.23 for that device is keeping me from doing so.

All best wishes, and many thanks for your consideration.

Rob

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by RobertJSawyer

Hi, David. Your time is valuable indeed, but I'd certainly be grateful for a driver that could be installed in calbre 4.23.

I am sticking with Windows 7 32-bit. I do all my writing (as does George R.R. Martin, and some other professional writers) with WordStar for DOS (although I use version 7.0 and George prefers 4.0). My reasons are here: https://sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm

I've tried all the major DOS emulators that run under Windows (DOSBox, vDos, vDosPlus, and DOSBox-x, and indeed I maintain a web page on using WordStar under vDosPlus, but none of the emulations run nearly as fast as the NTVDM on a 32-bit machine (NTVDM won't run at all on 64-bit machines), and the speed does make a real difference when you're zipping back-and-forth in the 100,000-word novels I write. Every other application is secondary to my use of my computer for writing, so I won't be upgrading beyond Windows 7 for years to come.

On the other hand, I'm quite tempted to upgrade (or supplement) my trusty Kobo Clara HD with the new Libra 2 -- but the lack of a driver for calibre 4.23 for that device is keeping me from doing so.

All best wishes, and many thanks for your consideration.

Rob

Interesting reading, that.

If I had to use a program that only runs on older Windows and couldn't upgrade my main PC because of that, I'd buy an additional cheap Windows 10/11 laptop (or a lightly used business-class Windows 10 laptop). So I could run both modern applications on the newer computer and still use the older program on the old PC.

Because time goes on, unfortunately, and there will be fewer and fewer programs capable of running on Windows 7.

[Lynx-lynx]

Should anyone consider getting a Windows device of whatever size, ensure that it is Win11 capable

[RobertJSawyer]

Hi, Sirtel. Amongst the many computers I own, I do have one Windows 10 64-bit laptop. I hate the Windows 10 interface with a passion, and I hate its constant updating (yes, I know the tricks to avoid that) even more.

My wife works full-time for me looking after the non-creative parts of my business (accounting, publicity, etc.); she might need a Windows 10/11 computer at some point, but if other programs demand updates and cease to work on my Windows 7 32-bit systems, well, then, that just means fewer things to distract me from actually writing.

[JSWolf]

Is there any reason not to update 3.48 and 4.23 with the information needed to recognize newer devices?

[John F]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Is there any reason not to update 3.48 and 4.23 with the information needed to recognize newer devices?

You do realize that there is not a Calibre plugin fairy that magically makes these things appear?