[monstermonster]

Huh? I think you missed something.

This is nothing to do with BBS's or code abstractions. On the former, there is no OSI stack; it's terminals down serial connections. On the latter, it's datagrams or sockets. It's about the guarantees that the link layer makes or doesn't. Parity doesn't pass up the layers because the guarantees are made further up (TCP).

You can still run token ring, serial, thick ether, thin ether, paper aeroplanes thrown between buildings. It doesn't matter above the data link layer.

Yes there are really fucking smart people here, as you put it but it appears there is a normal distribution of people as well.