More FreeBSD 6.1: open(/dev/lpt0, O_WRONLY) hangs up

[george+freebsd at m5p.com]

More information about my /dev/lpt0 problem:

1. Enabling or disabling ACPI has no effect.
2. If I boot up in single user mode, I can cat a file to /dev/lpt0
and it prints on the printer.
3. Once I go to mutliuser mode, open("/dev/lpt0",O_WRONLY) hangs
forever whether I start lpd or not.
4. If I "shutdown now" to get back to single user mode and then
"cat datafile >/dev/lpt0", it hangs until I type control-C, at which
point the shell says: "cannot create /dev/lpt0: Interrupted system call"
(which really means, looking at the code in /usr/src/bin/sh/redir.c,
"cannot OPEN /dev/lpt0").

Help!                                      -- George Mitchell