>Thanks, Al.
>
>I found references to VFP running well on Mac VMs some years back, but that was when Macbook still used Intel chips. M2 is pretty new and as you note, will involve emulation layers that online articles say can create performance hits. In addition, 12th and now 13th gen I7/I9 reportedly are quicker than M2- but for what? Usually it's for stereotyped huge throughput tests that seem more attuned to video processing or games than database apps. Issue with M2 is that it's like a certain US Healthcare bill: you have to vote for it (buy it) to find out what's in it.

If you are OK with the bleeding edge, apparently VirtualBox developer preview will run on Apple silicon: https://www.makeuseof.com/how-to-install-virtualbox-apple-silicon-mac/ . That would probably give a more "conventional" VM experience than Parallels.

That article does not say if guest OSs need to be ARM-based like Parallels and VMWare Fusion.