rs232 cable splitting/sharing

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.

thanks all for your help!



__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection
around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 

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.
>