Originally posted by freeOn
IF you don' t just let it me. Third Party usually refers to more then 2 people.
He said P-A-R-I-T-Y, not party, or 3rd party, or house party.
First off - setting the buffer higher could give you a very minor speed boost. If you were recieving data faster than your computer could pull it off the line, a large buffer would help you recieve data faster. But if your ISP is bitchy, you can get connection problems with a larger buffer (but not usually).

Parity is a error checking bit that is added and put on the end of a segment of data (either 7 or 8 bits).
There is no parity, where no error checking bit is added.

There is even parity where the bit added must keep the amount of on bits even.
1100 - the parity would be 0
1101 - the parity would be 1

And there is odd parity where the bit added must keep the amount of on bits odd.
1100 - the parity would be 1
1101 - the parity would be 0

Odd parity is standard for synchronous transmission and even parity for asynchronous transmission.

If you set parity on a system that does not use parity, you will not get a connection. About the only time "I" ever used parity was on the good ole BBS.
It was a big deal when phone lines were not as stable as they are now and the exrta data checking was almost a necessity.