What Are My Options To Test On Mac OS X?

[tinjaw]

Torque Game Builder allows me to build my game for OS X. I don't own a Mac or OS X. I would like to find a very low cost way of testing games that I build to be able to sell them to OS X users.

1) Does Apple have a program for developers for me to get a cheap copy of OS X to develop against?
2) Could I run OS X in a virtual machine on VMware Server? If not, what about the latest version of VMware Workstation?
3) Does anybody here have experience doing this sort of thing?
4) Is there a list of hints and tips available for doing this?

My Google search begins.... now

[Darwin]

I'm <cough, cough> pissing in the wind here, but my guess is that in order to develop for OSX you're going to have to get your hands on Apple hardware to run it on. I hope to be proven wrong... but am not optimistic.

[f0dder]

It's possible to run OS X under vmware, but it requires stuff that apple isn't at all happy about... might even be illegal.

If the Mac Minis were a good deal cheaper, they would be very nice for testing etc., but they're like US$1.000 here in Denmark >_<

[app103]

There is PearPC.

This was recommended when I asked rkarman this same question about 8 months ago, on behalf of a friend when she needed to compile & test a Mac version of her application.

I remembered him saying he used something at his job but at that time I couldn't remember what it was called. I'll see if I can persuade him to leave a comment about his experiences with it.

You will still need a copy of the OS disks.

[tinjaw]

I had no idea Apple made it illegal to run OS X on anything than Apple hardware. Oh well. No Mac games from me.

[Darwin]

I had no idea Apple made it illegal to run OS X on anything than Apple hardware. Oh well. No Mac games from me.

Crazy, innit?

[f0dder]

There is PearPC.

This was recommended when I asked rkarman this same question about 8 months ago, on behalf of a friend when she needed to compile & test a Mac version of her application.

PearPC is a PowerPC emulator - macs have been running on x86 hardware for a while now.