> I have a little hello world program that runs system() just fine.
> Anyone know how to interprest the 32512? Anyone know how to find an
> error message in English? Any other ideas to narrow the root cause
> scope of this problem?

The exit codes are set by the program that you were called with
system.  For example, on windows:

irb(main):062:0> system "cmd /c exit 3"; puts $?.inspect
#<Process::Status: pid=1100,exited(3)>
=> nil
irb(main):063:0> system "cmd /c exit 33"; puts $?.inspect
#<Process::Status: pid=1472,exited(33)>
=> nil

There is no universal key to error codes. The first step to figuring
it out is to identify the program you were tying to call.  Then search
that program's documentation.