# 2-in-1 with a Kindle app?



## Jack Zavada (Aug 21, 2013)

I'm considering buying a Kindle Paperwhite, but I have a question some of you will be able to answer.

I have some old software called *The Ultimate Library*, which has 11,000 ebooks on it. It's a Windows program. There are some really great books on it, including ALL The Shadow and Doc Savage pulp novels, plus a lot of classics I'd like to read.

Here's the question. If I bought a 2-in-1 computer, that is, one of those new outfits with the detachable screen you can use as a tablet, could I get a Kindle app for it and read Kindle ebooks and use my *Ultimate Library* software on it too?

Thanks!


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

There is a kindle app for android -- including tablets -- and for Win 8.  So the answer is probably yes for the kindle app. 

Don't know about the 'Ultimate Library' but if it can run in Win 8 you shouldn't have a problem.  What format are the files?


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## Jack Zavada (Aug 21, 2013)

Ann,

Thanks for that info. I don't know what kind of files the books on *Ultimate Library* are, but they're on CD-ROMs. Tablets, etc. don't have a CD drive, do they? Garsh, am I iggerant. 

Jack


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Jack Zavada said:


> Ann,
> 
> Thanks for that info. I don't know what kind of files the books on *Ultimate Library* are, but they're on CD-ROMs. Tablets, etc. don't have a CD drive, do they? Garsh, am I iggerant.
> 
> Jack


No . . . . you'd have to copy them from the cd to a file that could be then transferred to the tablet.


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## HappyGuy (Nov 3, 2008)

Most tablets and even most two-in-ones don't have a CD drive. However, you can get an external drive (recommend a DVD which will also play CDs) and you'll probably want/need to get an external hard drive of some sort.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Jack, can you put the cd in a computer go over to documents and look at the files.  It should tell you the file type.


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## TheGapBetweenMerlons (Jun 2, 2011)

This made me curious so I did some looking. One reviewer for The Ultimate Library said that all of the titles in it are in the public domain. As much as I hate giving up on some of my older software -- I dredged up an old DOS game to play with my son about a week ago -- I would recommend letting go of the Windows software "wrapper" around those books and acquaint yourself with Project Gutenberg, Open Library, and the "Free Popular Classics" collection on Amazon. That will hopefully eliminate compatibility with those old CDs as a criterion for what device to get. As a computer professional, I'd hate to see someone limit their current hardware choices based on what is, unfortunately, a probably-obsolete software product.


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## Jack Zavada (Aug 21, 2013)

Thanks for the responses. If 2-in-ones do not have a CD/DVD drive, that solves the problem right there.

Contrary to what you've read, all of the material on _The Ultimate Library_ is *NOT* in public domain. I like reading old pulp fiction, and all of the stories of The Shadow and Doc Savage are on this collection; that's more than 300 novels. Although many of these works are 70 or 80 years old, Street & Smith, the original copyright holder, has renewed their copyrights. I don't know how they showed up in this collection. It's amazing, really. I don't know whether someone keyed all this material in (11,000 books) or what, but there's a lot of worthwhile stuff there.

As far as the software being obsolete, however, you may be right. I was running it on Windows XP, and I don't know if later Windows versions will operate it.


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## HappyGuy (Nov 3, 2008)

If it's in a Windows wrapper they may just be text files. Assuming you have access to an external CD drive, you may be able to save them to your computer and then put them into a free program called Calibre to convert them to either .mobi or .epub files.


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