Found Footage: Apple introduces Cocoa at the 1996 WWDC

In case you're thinking this footage is about Cocoa, the Application Programming Interface for Mac OS X, you're dead wrong. This Cocoa was a simulation tool and easy programming language for kids that was demoed at the 1996 WWDC by a young man named Gregory Miller.

Miller does an admirable job in this video getting the developers in the crowd to cheer, including when he tells them that "I'm your competition." In 1996, of course, Apple was having some real problems -- in fact, many people thought that was the year that the company was going to collapse.

The first PowerPC-based Mac laptop, the PowerBook 5300, had engineering issues that forced every unit to be recalled. Clone manufacturers were undercutting Apple's pricing, and Gil Amelio came in as CEO to start the renaissance of Apple by cutting expenses and writing a corporate strategy that is still, in many cases, followed to this day.

Enjoy the video. It's a definite reminder of just how far Apple has come in 15 years.

Tip of the hat to Graham Lee for this trip down memory lane.