cups 1.2.2 and parallel port printers

[rance at frontiernet.net]

After cvsupping my ports tree to fix a couple of security problems I 
decided to install cups for printing.

Yea I know it isnt the freebsd default -- thats for another day.

Anyway This new version of cups 1.2.2 is really cool, I like the 
interface and the web admin portal has really undergone lots of work.

My problem is that when you add a printer via the web interface the 
devices pull-down does not show a parallel port even if the system has 
detected that there is a printer there.  (ie dmesg shows the printer 
discovery)

so where is the parallel port?

I asked on the cups list, and got nowhere.

I googled for it, but didn't get anything helpful

here is what I know:

An older version of cups on THIS same machine DID find the SAME printer.

there is a parallel option in the back-ends directory.

I cant find a log entry anywhere that suggests that a parallel port 
printer is even being searched for and not found, so I can't be for 
sure where exactly the problem lies.

anybody seen this behavior before? or have a clue?

Thanks

Rance