RetroDECK 0.11.0 Is Building Something Bigger Than Emulation

There's a good chance you've never heard of the 2-XL Robot. I certainly wouldn't blame you, I know I haven’t. Originally produced by Mego Corporation in the late 1970s, and later revived by Tiger Electronics in the 1990s, it was a rather peculiar talking toy that used audio cassettes to tell stories, ask questions and respond to its owner's choices. Depending on which buttons you pressed, the robot would switch between different audio tracks, giving the impression that you were having something approaching a conversation with it. In many ways, it was a cassette-powered choose-your-own-adventure machine, packaged inside a friendly-looking plastic robot.It's also the sort of thing you might reasonably assume has very little to do with RetroDECK, the self-contained retro gaming platform best known for bringing emulation to the Steam Deck and other Linux devices. Yet, tucked away among the enormous number of additions planned for its upcoming 0.11.0 update is a rather lovely little…