If you have free USB ports, the cheapest solution is probably a
USB-to-serial dongle. Even if you need to add a PCI USB controller I
suspect it will still cost less than a multiport serial board.

-T

Tomas D wrote:
> Hi, I need general help with rs232, sharing serial cable in particular.
>
> I have one of systems connected to the pager system using rs232. I want to connect another system
> to pager system too but there's only one rs232 input to it(and it's used). I was thinking about
> splitting cable and connecting existing and new systems to paging system. My question is what
> would happen if both systems tried to send data over serial connection at the same time? my guess
> is that messages would get corrupted and nothing would go to the pagers... if that's the case is
> there a device that would buffer message if messages would arrive on rs232 input ports 1 and 2
> simultaniusly and then spool messages and deliver them one after the other? I know that it takes
> like 1second to send the message but I really need to make sure that everything is delivered.
>