As for serial ports this is not the case... you can purchase 4-8-16 or
even 32 port serial boards that only use 1 interrupt for all of the ports
on the board. "I dont have a free int. for that board you say? Disable an
on-board serial port in your bios or turn off the unused USB port. The
highest number of serial ports I have witnessed is 128Ports on one IRQ.
Just look in a Jameco catalog for these creatures.

>      Jim, it is not a shortage of com ports that is the problem, it is the
>      shortage of free interrupts. ALL my interrupts are tied up on my PC,
>      making it impossible to add additional serial ports. I read an article
>      a month or two ago in PC magazine that complained that new PC's are
>      commonly being shipped these days with NO FREE INTERRUPTS, which makes
>      future expansion nearly impossible. With a parallel port device the
>      software can poll the port without requiring an interrupt to service
>      it.
>
>      PCI adapters can share interrupts, but only if the software driver
>      supports it. All devices connected to a SCSI bus share a single
>      interrupt, but we don't have any SCSI device programmers. :>
>      Eventually, USB should make our interrupt headaches go away, but for
>      now, it is esier for many people to add another parallel port to their
>      PC than to try to find a free interrupt to support a serial port.
>
>
>      CIAO - Martin.
>