Is QEMU the best option to run older OS X (in particular Snow Leopard, and yes, a legal retail purchased physical copy) on a modern machine? I currently keep a rather bulky cheese grater to run a few programs from time to time.
That's the option with the least headache. I believe there are other simulators too but they are much more specialized.
With some hacking you can run all MacOS/MacOS X versions on x86, x64 and PPC from 8.6 to 13 if you have a x64 machine. If you have an Apple Silicon one it gets too slow to simulate around 10.10 (on x64 you can use hvf virtualization). It might be a bit less nice than tailored emulators like SheepShaver but having the same UI for all these OSes (plus other OSes) beats everything in my opinion.
Unfortunately Apple Silicon machines cannot be simulated without some hidden knowledge only some secretive companies have. Hopefully the knowledge will become public some years from now.
My memory is that it only had to be run on Apple hardware, but perhaps I should go back and check. Or just not tell anybody, and hope the Apple Police don't get me — it's not like I'm letting something that old out to play on the internet (though I do sometimes miss iCab).
With some hacking you can run all MacOS/MacOS X versions on x86, x64 and PPC from 8.6 to 13 if you have a x64 machine. If you have an Apple Silicon one it gets too slow to simulate around 10.10 (on x64 you can use hvf virtualization). It might be a bit less nice than tailored emulators like SheepShaver but having the same UI for all these OSes (plus other OSes) beats everything in my opinion.
Unfortunately Apple Silicon machines cannot be simulated without some hidden knowledge only some secretive companies have. Hopefully the knowledge will become public some years from now.