FYI -- Parallels 16 now supports BigSur as a VM on older systems

[Michael]

On 2020-12-06, at 7:46 PM, Joshua Root <jmr at macports.org> wrote:

> On 2020-12-7 13:21 , Michael wrote:
>> Ok, lets say I wanted to use a 2014 laptop running 10.9.5 as the host -- which VM would let me run a 10.12 and a 10.14 guest? 
>> 
>> Bonus points if it can run a 10.7 (lion) guest.
>> 
>> Triple bonus if it can run either a PPC guest, or a 10.6 running rosetta :-)
>> (That's *NOT* a joke, some software never updated.)
>> 
> 
> VirtualBox works well enough to build MacPorts installers on OS X
> versions back to 10.4 Server. I've hosted it on a 2013 Mac Pro and a
> 2018 Mac mini. The main issue with older OSes is not recognising newer
> CPUs. You can make the VM report a fake cpuid to work around that.
> 
> - Josh

This is potentially interesting. Looking at the VirtualBox docs and information on Mac OS guests, it says:
1. Only 1 CPU for the guest OS (so, really slow?)
2. Restricted guest OS versions (notes that Apple software does some technical checks). Only the explicit server OS versions are listed as working.

... Hmm, video modes look like it will be "fun" :-).