I finally figured out what was crashing GrafX2: The SRDISK XMS-based RAM disk was eating half the RAM (as I meant it to!) which made GrafX2 not have enough memory to run at any but the lowest resolutions.
So now I have a good reason to max out the RAM in this ThinkPad to 512MB of PC100. That, plus a faster and larger mass storage and a better optical drive; maybe a rebuilt battery with all new cells too if I'm feeling it at the time. Oh, and a matching black IBM PS/2 optical mouse.
I can feel it: This is gonna be a fucking nice machine for DOS-based retro-coding and gamedev.
@mos_8502 That's the joy of old memory infrastructures, it becomes a fun game of capping out the hardware
I once ran WinXP on 256MBs of SIMMs. It was hilarious...ly slow
@elfi This machine has 128MB now. FreeDOS can handle up to 4GB or more (?!), the hardware can take up to 2x256MB PC100 SODIMMs.