BeOS may be especially sensitive to the quality of the parallel cable you’re using – a lot of cheap cables available in computer stores just aren’t up to snuff and will result in print problems in BeOS. After trying both EPP and ECP modes and fiddling around with various options, I went out and bought one of the more expensive cables. Instantly, prints from my Epson came out without excessive „pre-computation“ time and without hanging.
Many salespeople will tell you that all printer cables are the same — don’t believe them.