Here we have a vintage 2-XL toy robot by tiger electronics that was manufactured from 1992 to 1995. This unit has sat on the bookcase for years and as a result it does have some issues but was able to get it to work good enough for the sake of the video. I need to do a overhaul on this unit to get it back to 100%. 2-XL is a play on the words "To Excel". The robot uses specially recorded cassette tapes.
They way the unit works is the 4 track head that is installed can jump from side 1 or side 2 depending on what button is pressed. The tape does not change direction but rather takes advantage of the fact that each cassette tape has 4 tracks. Left and right on side one and left and right on side 2.
Each track has a question or answer recorded on it and depending which button is pressed it will output one of the tracks or channels. That is how it knows which button was pressed. No computers here. The voice is provided by the designer Michael J. Freeman who recorded the tapes in a recording studio.
The first generation of this robot was manufactured by Mego Toy Corporation from 1978 to 1981 and used 8-track tapes. the first one was just basically a regular 8-track player designed to look like a robot with the buttons changing tracks. This one is sorta like a cassette player only The buttons change which channel is outputted and which side of the tape is accessed.
To play a regular cassette tape in this 1992 version you need to press the Question button first or it won't play correctly. If you were to play a 2-XL cassette tape in a regular player you would get 2 different voices at one. 1 voice for left and 1 for right. 2-XL was also the baises for a spin off TV show called pick your brain which was produced by Michael freeman though he did not provide the voice.
You can read more here
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2-XL
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael...
The game show pick your brain based on this version of the 2-XL robot
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pick_Yo...
8 ноя 2019
