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System Compatible By the early '80s, Atari's Video Computer System (VCS) was the top-selling video game console. After its 1980 debut, Mattel's Intellivision was off to a good start with graphics that blew away anything that Atari had to offer. However, it didn't take long to discover that many of the Intellivision games were merely eye candy. Many of the Intellivision games were slow, for two players only, and mostly sports related. When Activision began releasing fun and graphically attractive games for the VCS, any lead that Intellivision may have had disappeared. The humble Atari VCS was once again at the top of the heap. When Coleco reentered the video game business with its Colecovision, it decided to cover all bases. It went ahead and merged superior graphics (Mattel's strength) with well-known arcade titles (Atari's forte) to create a supersystem that very few could ignore. The only obstacle that Coleco had to overcome was the Atari VCS's (now called the 2600) library of several hundred games. Many people simply weren't willing to abandon collections in which they invested several hundreds of dollars for a brand new incompatible gaming system. Coleco decided to woo them over another way. The company took an unprecedented step and offered an adapter - one that let you play all the games for the Atari 2600 on this new system - which plugged into the Colecovision. Coleco also planned a module that would play Intellivision games, but that adapter was never released. In all, three companies announced add-on peripherals that would make their systems compatible with the Atari 2600. Two of the peripherals were actually released. Interestingly, all three companies also marketed 2600-compatible cartridges.
When Coleco decided to reenter the video game business in 1982 (the company had been a major player with dedicated systems during the early '70s, along with Magnavox and Atari), it decided to come in with a bang. On the front of the Colecovision was a sliding door that was labeled "expansion module interface." The purpose of this interface was to attach additional peripherals, which would expand the capabilities of the base console. The first of these, the $60 Expansion Module 1, was an add-on that played Atari 2600 games.
Atari naturally sued Coleco for infringing on its patents, but since Atari made the 2600s with nonpatented off-the-shelf parts, any company was free to clone the popular console. Coleco went ahead and released its 2600 expansion module, as well as a 2600 stand-alone clone called the Gemini.
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