Wins Connector — Our Windows BBS Terminal NEW

Wins Connector is a free Windows program for connecting to Winserver / Wildcat! bulletin boards — including this one — and other text-based systems. Menus that used to be plain text show up as clickable color buttons, so the BBS looks current while staying a real BBS. It installs with a normal Windows setup program (64-bit Windows 10 or 11) — no Python or extra software needed.

Telnet, SSH & Rlogin — all three in one program, with Quick Connect for a one-off address such as host:port
Phone Book (F9) — save your boards with their settings and a logo picture for each, plus one-click tiles for your favorites
Auto Login & Quick Learn — answers the Login and Password prompts for you, or records your login once and replays it every time
Clickable Menus & Cards — plain-text menus become color buttons and “press a key” screens become neat cards, plus full RIPscrip 1.54 graphics for hosts that send them
RIPscrip Graphics — full RIPscrip 1.54 drawn in its own window for hosts that send it, with a RIP on/off switch on every phone-book entry so boards that don’t use RIP are left alone
Built-In Games — 9 Arcade Classics and 4 Casino Games, each drawn by the program’s own RIPscrip engine, playable while a download runs
File Transfers — ZMODEM, YMODEM and XMODEM downloads, plus a web-address download that never overwrites an existing file
FTP, FTPS, SFTP & SCP — a two-pane file client with your PC on the left, the server on the right, and its own phone book
Color Themes — Dark by default, with Red, Blue, Green and Orange to choose from
Built-In Manual — searchable help on F1 and a printable PDF Operator’s Manual that comes with the installer

First-run tip: Windows may show a “Windows protected your PC” notice because the installer isn’t code-signed yet. Choose More info, then Run anyway. Your phone books and settings are kept in one folder and are left alone if you ever uninstall.

RIPscrip Capabilities

  • Real RIPscrip 1.54 — when a host sends RIP graphics, Wins Connector draws the screens, menus and buttons in a RIP window of their own.
  • RIP on or off for each board — every phone-book entry has a RIP selector. With it off, the RIP settings in the Terminal menu are ignored for that board.
  • Plain-text boards look modern too — Winserver / Wildcat! 10 sends no RIP, so Wins Connector draws its menus as clickable color buttons and its “press a key” screens as cards, in switchable color themes.
  • Chat and user lists — chat screens such as WinsChat Terminal get a chat card with Who, List and Channels buttons, and long user lists page with Next and Previous.
  • For sysops — a converter in the full package turns your own .BBS menu screens into RIP screens that Wins Connector finds automatically.
  • One engine for everything — the built-in games below are drawn through the same RIPscrip engine.

Game Titles

Arcade Classics — 9 games, opened from the Arcade Classics tile on the main screen or the Games menu:

  • Galaxy Guards (Galaga-style) and Star Swarm (Galaxian-style)
  • Asteroids and Space War
  • Missile Defense (Missile Command-style) and Rear Gunner (Tailgunner-style)
  • Pong — one or two players
  • Snow Skiing — downhill slalom
  • Bowling — one or two players, with pin physics

Casino Games — 4 games for play money only, with one bankroll shared by all four and remembered between sessions:

  • Draw Poker (Jacks or Better), Blackjack, Roulette (European single-zero wheel) and Slots

BBS door games — on Crappie Cracker Online’s Games menu, Interplanetary Trader and Oregon Trail show up as clickable buttons, alongside chat options such as Wildchat by EMSsoft.

Good to know: every built-in game runs in its own window and doesn’t touch your connection. Press Esc to close a game and P to pause.

Getting Started

  • Run the WinsConnector-Setup-win64 installer. It needs 64-bit Windows 10 or 11 and asks for administrator permission because it installs to Program Files.
  • Click through the welcome, folder and install pages. You can tick “Start Wins Connector” on the last page.
  • Click Telnet, then choose File > Phone book (F9) and New.
  • Enter Name: Crappie Cracker Online, Address: crappiecracker.com, Port: 2323, Protocol: telnet. Double-click the entry to connect.
Where your settings live: phone books, tiles, login scripts and RIP settings are all kept in one folder, %APPDATA%\WinsConnect. Copy that folder to back up or move to another PC. Uninstalling leaves it alone.