Not sure anyone will ever see this, but I'm not yet able to post in any real forums. My question is, how difficult is it to set the bitcoin mining program to mine an alt chain? I would like to start my own chain as a local currency to exchange amongst friends and neighbors in my community.
MegaD
A turn key solution may be to do testnet in a box:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/testnet-in-a-box/ and
https://github.com/freewil/bitcoin-testnet-boxProbably not good to use 'em long term, but should help you get an idea of what may be involved. For your own local currency, you probably don't want the difficulty pegged at one.