No red dome on top, no lightbulbs or chrome plating in eyes, stronger purple color in header strip
A grey volume control (and/or on-off control) was here instead of the power jack. You can view it at the MEGO MUSEUM site (see link below). PRESS Q to return to the 2-XL Robots & Programs Index (Note the computer-style font)
White 8-Track Program		 PRESS A to learn about the Mego Type 1 & Type 2 (Note the computer-style font)
White 8-Track program		 PRESS B to learn about the Tiger 2-XL Type 3. (Note the computer-style font)
White 8-Track Program 		PRESS C to learn about Kasey the Kinderbot. (Note the computer-style font)
White 8-Track Program 		Power jack on right side instead of left

  • Press A to learn about Mego 2-XL Type 1 and Mego 2-XL Type 2, and the Mego 2-XL 8-Track Programs.

  • Press B to learn about Tiger 2-XL Type 3, and the Tiger 2-XL Cassette Programs.

  • Press C to learn about the newest version, Kasey the Kinderbot.

Please push A, B, or C, Now.

To return to the 2-XL Robots & Programs Index, push the Question button.

You have selected C:
The Mythical Type 0

OR: This is how rumors get started...

WHOOPS! MY BAD.
When I first launched this website, I included another version of 2-XL that I called "2-XL Mk I." I have since learned that my information on this alternate 2-XL was dead wrong -- it doesn't exist! So for the sake of anyone who may have remembered that listing, I'm including it here so I can now debunk a myth I accidentally started.

Also, because of this big screw-up on my part, I've abandoned the Mk I, Mk II, Mk III & Mk IV names I previously used on the old version of this site, and am now calling the different 2-XLs by a more straight-forward Mego Type 1, Mego Type 2 and Tiger Type 3, with the former Mk I now being the mythical Type 0.

THE EVIDENCE...
I got my information on the Type 0 from a fellow student back in 1980. According to him, he had a 2-XL a few years earlier. Since 2-XL had come out in 1978, that was believable enough. This 2-XL was white instead of tan, and you turned it on by pushing the button on the top of his head. Since the red dome on the top of 2-XL's head looked like it was meant to be a button (come on... tell me you didn't try to press it at least once to see if it did anything), this also seemed believable. He couldn't show me this different 2-XL, because he dropped it down a flight of stairs and it split right in half. Since my 2-XL has taken a real beating over the years and held up, it seemed believable to me that Mego could have changed the design early on to make it more durable.

The thing that really made me believe him was that he said it came with a unique program. This "General Information" style program came with a sticker sheet of "footprints" or "spaces," which you laid out on a piece of paper or cardboard to make your own customized game board in any pattern you wanted. Then you used a penny or any other token you wanted to use, and 2-XL would reward you for correct answers by telling you how many spaces you could move. So when "Robotriva" and "Robostronomy" came out later that year using the same concept, I was totally convinced he knew what he was talking about.

On top of that, a few years later I was in an obscure small-town five-and-dime store and found a 2-XL tape packaged on a blue card (as opposed to the much more common red and green cards), with a picture of a 2-XL that looked very different from the regular 2-XL. To my memory it looked white as opposed to tan, and had the more cheesy 70's style computer font for the buttons. Well, I thought, this must be that very first version of 2-XL my classmate had spoken about! So, thinking I knew what I was talking about (and not realizing my 2-XL website was actually going to be seen by so many people) I went ahead and put everything I knew about this "2-XL Mk I" on my website and treated it as fact.

THE DOUBT SETS IN...
I started to get suspicious that this version didn't exist when eBay came along. Used 2-XL toys pretty much vanished from garage sales and flea markets, and eBay was now the only place I could find them. Yet after years of seeing all these different 2-XLs come and go there, I never saw my elusive Type 0. I wasn't just looking in my back yard anymore -- e-Bay is the equivelant of an international flea market. And yet nobody out there had one?

Shades of Zero? I then got an original Mego box, and on the side was a 2-XL that looked like an earlier prototype design that was probably used just for the packaging. (You know, "final product color may vary" kind of thing. You can see a different image of this prototype along with a good look of that unique white tape here at the Mego Museum.) It is radically different from the finished product, specifically:

  • The buttons have the computer-style font,
  • It has a unique white tape,
  • Although not in a white casing, the casing does appear to be a different color,
  • It doesn't have the lightbulbs in the eyes yet (further indicating it was an unfinished prototype), but which also gives the face a whiter look,
  • No red dome on the top -- well, that would make sense if the dome was pushed in to turn it on, right?
  • The power plug is where the normal on-off switch would be, backing up the theory that the dome is really the on-off switch,
  • The feet are less round and more slanted.
    Hmmm... is this what I saw on that blue program card? Looking at it now, it just looked like an unfinished prototype. Odds are it was, and I had mistakenly presumed that this prototype was actually released, and I had been telling people that it was out there as the 2-XL Mk I! It didn't help that I now couldn't find the blue card to confirm what I had seen before. I was seriously starting to doubt my facts.


    THE FINAL VERDICT
    Finally I had a chance to read an interview with Dr. Freeman where this was addressed. When asked about earlier versions of 2-XL, Dr. Freeman had said that the only major design changes 2-XL had gone through were the changing eyes. Since changing the on/off switch from a dome button to a knob, the location of the power jack and the color of the unit are all just as big changes, had these changes really happened he surely would have known about them and included them!

    So at this point I have to assume that my classmate was either confused and/or pulling my leg, and the picture I saw wasn't what I thought it was. And that's going to stay my official stance on this until the day I actually find one that proves me wrong! My apologies to all for spreading mis-information in the first place!


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