[scottlamb]

> I have never heard of this convention before! Was "random bitflips messing with your conditionals" a common problem back in the day?

Due to RAM/CPU failures? I don't think so (though I have seen it, fwiw). With weird serial protocols that don't have proper checksums/digests, running over sketchy wiring? Yeah, and that might be part of "very low-level code and hardware experience".