Postscript printer, serial or parallel cable?

[Doug Poland]

Hi,

I recently got my hands on a free (woowho!) HP 4050 printer.  I'm
going to hook it up to a FreeBSD 4.9-STABLE server.  The printer has
two serial (one male/one female) connectors, a Centronix port, and
some odd looking port that looks like you plug a mouse into it.

The handbook states that I can use serial or parallel cabling to a
postscript capable printer but there may be some advantage to a serial
cable as it is bi-directional.  I've got several newer IEEE
something-or-another parallel cables lying around unused.   They were
rather expensive and, IIRC, proported to be bi-directional.

Question:  Is a serial hookup preferable to parallel?  As a future
possiblity, this modest FBSD box may become a dedicated print server
with a color laser and ink jet also hanging off it.  I'll probably
install CUPS and "share" it with windows users via Samba.

Thanks for your input

-- 
Regards,
Doug