Hi all: What I was hoping for was an external box which could do this trick, but I see that's not realistic at all. I thought I remembered the computers at school having a box that connected to the port and gave you four serial ports. Thinking about it more carefully I now remember it was only a switch box and only one at a time would work. Really bad question, guess I'm out of luck. I don't know that I have any free slots available for a card either and wouldn't feel comfortable installing one if I did. This isn't even related to Linux now so respond off list if you like. Is this something that I could go into a computer shop and have upgraded? Would I perhaps have to get a new motherboard installed or something drastic like that and how much would it cost? Justin On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 02:47:30PM -0800, Chris Gray wrote: >Hi Justin: > >Due to the nature of the RS232-C serial specification, there are >complications about having something put together like a serial hubb. >The serial hardware alone takes a fair amount of electronics, the way >way serial ports are implemented through the motherboard doesn't lend >itself to a hubb like you see today with USB devices. It's a creative >question though. > >Before USB, there were lots of board made that attempted to do what you >are suggesting, or variants of that. Enough serial devices still exist >that you might be able to find such a device today. Typically, these >were boards that had 4, or more separate serial ports on them, with a >ton of jumpers to modify IRQ and port addresses. Beware of cards with >connectors that are just nullcross-overs for the same port; those won't >help you. You must have separate, discrete ports and >connectors/jumpers to them. > >whether you can find such a card that's both PCI and >affordable is an interesting question. I called a local, relatively >large computer store here in San Francisco Central Computers, because >all this made me curious and they have fairly decent customer service. >I'm slightly surprised, but It turns out they have a high speed i/o card >with two ports for $19.99 from Vitex, it's even in stock! If they carry >it, I bet you could order something from Comp USA if you've got the >patience, or find something localy or online. > >Hope this helps. > >Chris
