ToyBox II + MagicDesk
Graphical User Interface for MS-DOS
An appropriate end to this series on DOS GUIs with 2 excellent small examples from the 1990's.
The first is ToyBox II v2.2a from 1992 and the second is MagicDesk v3.22 from 1995.
Both of these were developed by Virtual Magic Software who (for whatever reason) changed the name from ToyBox to MagicDesk.
They're very similar in look and function, but the later MagicDesk v3.22 has a few more features than the earlier Toybox II and it's probably the pick, although functionally they're almost identical.
A basic difference in approach is that ToyBox II is user focussed, where MagicDesk is more application focussed.
By default the Toybox II start page has a User icon which takes you to a page for that user (with a Help icon and a few other icons) where you can then add application icons for programs that user can access.
MagicDesk however has a default start page with a Readme, Help icon and a few other icons and this is where you can either add programs for all users, or create a user specific page and applications.
Whatever the approach you prefer, it's very easy to add applications / users / new pages in both ToyBox II and MagicDesk.
A nice feature is that whatever you add (application / user / page) it can have a password associated with it.
Both come with a default set of icons and I've added a separate icon directory with an additional 174 icons - and there's also an icon editor.
MagicDesk has the edge on ToyBox II in that it's desktop icons can be dragged to re-arrange them, whereas ToyBox icons are static.
Configuration options in both are very basic and ToyBox can't change the desktop colour, wlthough MagicDesk can (and it also has a screen save function).
Both are very easy to use to add applications / users / pages to the desktop.
Both applications are very small as less than 300KB and are fast.
Two very nice functional DOS GUIs that are well worth trying out.
I've installed both into a single VirtualBox VHD.
There's no autorun on startup - to run ToyBox II enter "Toybox" at the C: prompt, or enter "Magic" for MagicDesk.
As well as the VHD I've included a .zip with the install files and all the screencaps.
The VHD was created using VirtualBox 6.1.26 and the DOS version installed is 6.22.
< Click here to download the VHD > < Click here to download the install files as a .zip >
Screenshots: (Use your browser's right click function "Open Image In New Tab" to see larger images)
MagicDesk v3.22:
ToyBox II v2.2a:
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