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2XL (2-XL) was an educational tape-playing toy robot first produced in the late 70s by Mego. The very first version of 2XL used 8-track tapes but by the early 90's, the new version of 2XL (made by Tiger Electronics) ran on cassette tapes. Today, 2XL uses cartridges.Invented by Dr Michael Freeman in 1978 (who also contributed the original New York-sounding voice), 2XL was originally intended to be an educational toy. 2XL could tell jokes, sing, ask questions and play games. When you turned on 2XL he would always say "Thank you for turning me on. I am 2-XL". One of the games you could play was "Tri-Lex", a sort of cross between checkers and tic-tac-toe. Each of the 2XL tapes/cartridges had a different educational theme and the robot challenged the listener to questions. You chose the correct answer to the question by pressing one of four buttons on the front of 2XL ("Question", "A or Yes or True", "B or More Info", "C or No or False" and he would either praise you for your skill, told you a joke, or just told you that you were wrong.2XL still exists today but under the new name of Kasey the Kinderbot and is now made by Tiger Electronics. The robot still has a huge cult following and it's possible to purchase the 8-track programs or cassettes second-hand.Some of the 8-track programs available between 1978-1981 included:Astronomy/2-XL in SpaceExercise with 2-XLStoryland: 2-XL and The Time MachineTraffic and Bicyle safety50's and 60's NostalgiaThe more recent Tiger 2-XL cassette sets included:Superman: A New Hero In TownJurassic Park: Chaos In Jurassic ParkMusic MakerBatman: Sizzling SchemeGeography and YouThere were several different versions of 2-XL. The original robot was quite bulky and was made of hard brown plastic, his face was made of a lighter plastic. In 1980 2-XL completely changed shape to more friendly looking robot with arms and a rounded head. With this 2XL version the eye lights flashed red and the louder you set the volume button, the brighter the lights would shine.Dr Freeman also created Kasey the Kinderbot - a spin off of 2-XL who came with colour-coded cartridges, Toby the Totbot and Fetch the Phonicsbot.
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