RS-422 was meant as a replacement for RS-232 as it offered
much higher speeds, better immunity to noise and allow for longer
cable lengths making it better suited to industrial environments.
The standard uses the same signals as the RS-232 standard, but used
differential twisted pair so requires double the number of wires
as RS-232. Connectors are not specified in the standard so block
or DB connectors are commonly used. RS-422 cannot implement a true
multi-point communications network since there can be only one driver
on each pair of wires. However, one driver can fan-out to up to
ten receivers.