user5751: Say I build some software around the Bitcoin system and I would like to try stuff without having to earn real BTC first, and without having to employ a lot of hashing power to grow the block chain.
As I understand it, the bitcoin clients connect to the network to get the authoritative block chain, so it seems I can't set up a toy network easily. Or can I? I would assume developers of the clients would need some way of testing their software.
While I am a software developer, and familiar with stuff like modifying source and rebuilding the client, the point of this exercise would be to run unaltered clients in a dummy environment.

user5751: This seemed to be a newbie question. There is what is called a "testnet", and there is more info on the Wiki at: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Testnet
This site has a specific tag for it, as well: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/testnet

5751: <p>Say I build some software around the Bitcoin system and I would like to try stuff without having to earn real BTC first, and without having to employ a lot of hashing power to grow the block chain.</p>

<p>As I understand it, the bitcoin clients connect to the network to get the authoritative block chain, so it seems I can't set up a toy network easily. Or can I? I would assume developers of the clients would need some way of testing their software.</p>

<p>While I am a software developer, and familiar with stuff like modifying source and rebuilding the client, the point of this exercise would be to run unaltered clients in a dummy environment.</p>
 5751: <p>This seemed to be a newbie question. There is what is called a "testnet", and there is more info on the Wiki at: <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Testnet" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Testnet</a></p>

<p>This site has a specific tag for it, as well: <a href="https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/testnet">https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/testnet</a></p>
