How to connect to multiple versions of Oracle/MS DB?

Question

Oracle

For educational purposes, I want to have at hand the ability to work with the Oracle 11g / 18c database and in the future MS SQL.
The base is on the VM (and I plan to install subsequent versions or other bases on new VM instances)
And connect to the bases - from the main system, but I see that Oracle has a specific driver for the base version.
And I don't want to install several ODBC drivers in the main system.

for me, the priority is to put fewer programs in the main system

What would you do in this situation, perhaps the base on the VM is not the best solution?

Answer 1

Oracle Client 11.2.0.4 connects without problems to Oracle Database from 9.2 to 19c inclusive
PS