tkcmd: thanks for the pointer! adding
SET DOS4GVM=VIRTUALSIZE#16384 SWAPNAME#c:\DOS4GVM.SWP NODELETESWAP
to my batch file definitely changed the bahavior. now it crashes dosbox completly. there's a bunch of stuff about the crash printed to the screen, but i'm not sure how to capture it. adding -noconsole to the dosbox call put the following in stdout.txt:
CONFIG:Loading settings from config file dosbox.conf
MIDI:Opened device:win32
Exit to error: Pagefault didn't correct page
Qbix: think you can try firing this game up on your system and see if your latest version works before i try and figure out how to get CVS and compile?