Coleco Gemini

 

 

This is the clone that started it all. Around 1982 Coleco reverse engineered the Atari 2600 and built their own compatible machine in addition to a 2600 adapter for the Colecovision console. Atari immediately laid the smackdown with  a lawsuit for copyright infringement, but lost on the grounds that the console didn't use any unique Atari components (it was made from off the shelf parts.) That opened the door for anyone to go to Radio Shack and slap together their own game console and steal customers from the big boys, which is exactly what all those overnight Chinese companies are still doing today. Subsequent lawsuits made cloning a "gray area," like it's okay to manufacture machines like this but you can't use any of the real company's logos, characters, or intellectual property (like games) in your advertising or on your packaging. We all know how well that law is obeyed. Nintendo claims to lose billions to Pirates every year and is even released their Ique console inside of China first in an attempt to meet the Pirates on their own ground. But there's no way to totally stamp out Piracy, and I say that's a good thing, because I like collecting pirate crap. 

Anyway, it's a 2600 clone. the only difference seems to be the astectics as well as the Coleco features combination joystick/paddle controllers (that for some reason don't seem to work on the normal 2600.) Not too hard to find but hardly worth more than $40.