Stagecast Creator is a visual programming language intended for use in teaching programming to children. It is based on the programming by demonstration concept, where rules are created by giving examples of what actions should take place in a given situation. It can be used to construct simulations, animations and games, which run under Java on any suitable platform. History The software known as Creator originally started as a project by Allen Cypher and David Canfield Smith in Apple's Advanced Technology Group (ATG) known as KidSim. It was intended to allow kids to construct their own simulations, reducing the programming task to something that anyone could handle. Programming in Creator uses graphical rewrite rules augmented with non-graphical tests and actions. In 1994, Kurt Schmucker became the project manager, and under him, the project was renamed Cocoa, and expanded to include a Netscape plug-in. It was also repositioned as "Internet Authoring for Kids", as the Internet was becoming increasingly accessible. The project was officially announced on May 13, 1996. There were three releases: DR1 (Developer Release 1) on October 31, 1996 DR2 in June, 1997 DR3 in June, 1998 When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he began dismantling a number of non-productive departments. One of these was the ATG. Larry Tesler, Cypher, and Smith, left to form Stagecast Software after retaining the rights to the Cocoa system. Apple went on to reuse the Cocoa name for the entirely unrelated Cocoa application framework, which had originated as OpenStep. Sales of Stagecast Creator ended on September 30, 2014 as part of Stagecast Software's cessation of operations and support ended on December 1, 2014. Description Creator is based on the idea of independent characters that have a graphical appearance and non-graphical properties. Each character has a list of rules that determine how it behaves. The rules are created by demonstrating what the character does in a specific situation. Each graphical rewrite rule is a before / after rule, stating that when the before conditions of the rule are met, the after actions of the rule are performed. For a simple example, consider a simulation showing a character walking across a field, jumping over any rocks it encounters. Such a simulation would start with the construction of the playfield, in this case a line of icons representing the grass and a few rocks. A character is then placed on the playfield and double-clicked