Ex-Apple Researchers Form Company

Apple Computer Inc.’s former chief scientist and other former key researchers launched a company to help children create their own video games and simulations. Dubbed Stagecast Software Inc., the company is a self-funded start-up located above a bicycle shop on Palo Alto’s University Avenue in Silicon Valley. The company has struck a deal with Apple that allows it to further develop a graphics tool, now known as Cocoa, in which children create their own “worlds” on a computer using simple icons and storyboards. One 12-year-old boy in San Carlos has already used an Apple prototype of the technology to make his own video game for sale over the Internet, while other kids have created self-sustaining, simulated ecological worlds. David Smith and Allen Cypher, two of Stagecast’s founders, were key researchers on Cocoa who spent the summer seeking a way to continue their work after Apple, which has been struggling to come back from deep losses, discontinued the project. The founders succeeded in persuading Larry Tesler, who had been chief scientist at Apple, to leave in August and join their company as president.