I'm aware, but I'm not fully educated on the difference between the two.

It's like alien dogs — the creature is not a dog per se, it's not a canine, but you call it a dog (as a writer) so the reader understands it serves the same role, socially. I think there are a lot of colloquial terms like "dog" that get reused in science fiction where it's not that thing, but it's like that thing and that's what people understand.

So you can explain why WINE is not an emulator (that's actually what WINE stands for) but at the end of the day, it's a program that lets you run programs designed for another machine or operating system. It accomplishes the same goal for the end user as an emulator, even if it does so a little differently. I guess it's like Boomers calling Xbox and PlayStation "Nintendo." They're technically wrong, but they just see video games and go with the name they know.

Tbf, I haven't touched a Mac in ages (and never personally owned one in my life), because the combination of the "luxury(tm)" device tax and Apple's vindictive anti-repair stance (and their walled garden on principle but that's not relevant here) basically put them on my "never buy and never recommend" list.

All good points. So here's what ya do - slide on over to your favorite used gear hub and pick up a 10 year old 8GB model for like $50 or $100. These things sold for thousands back in the day but now they're just beautiful old advanced-for-the-time hardware (that often run linux super easy if you get bored).

A little research will keep you to the ones that can be upgraded easily.

Grok all the rounded edges and backlit island glass-touchpad beautifulness. Wonder at how they got a good sound from tiny speakers in 1847 or whatever. Enjoy kicking around the candy colored icons and see how the configurations are just two clicks to wherever you want to be. It's like a vacation from scrolling through a textfile. Or, get jiggy with the BSD and go nuts. Get a free apple ID and smile guiltily when all your other cheap rescues line up behind it and interact seamlessly.

Just don't use your real name, keep behind your favorite recipe of networking, etc., obvs. And you might decide it's a good thing.

All fair.

To be clear, Apple's compatibility layer is mostly inaccessible to the user. Even with the latest macOS, so you should have GPTK (Game Porting Tool Kit), you can't just run a Windows game. You have to do some work... or use something like Whisky. And the guy who made Whisky stopped working on it so people could pay subscription fees to CrossOver (which is not a bad product; in fact, it funnels money into WINE which helps everyone). So in theory with CrossOver your CAD software may work... or may not... but it sounds like it wouldn't be worth it for you to try.

But wait — just out of curiosity, how upgradeable is a ThinkPad? Typically the motherboard limits what you can do (e.g. if it's an AMD system, an AM4 means you can use most of the newest stuff, but there's some stuff locked behind AM5 you won't be able to touch, but it's the same on the Intel side as well). So, just curious how far you can actually take a $300 used ThinkPad. I used to build, so it's just that, a curiosity.