I wonder how "legal" hosting this would be given that it would require the host to basically distribute the game for free for everyone else

As legal as archive.org collection of DOS games playable in browser, by which I mean not at all. But defunct game studios rarely sue.

Actually, it's more grey area than you think. See 'interoperability exception'. It does break copyright and EULAs however.

i actually developed the project to play my own game dumps remotely via VPN from my home server; making it publicly available is not legal and will be consequences:)