printing in suse 8.1 & cups

I have tried cups and kprint with an HP-LJ-4 and Lexmark z53 on lpt0 I have considered the HP-LJ-4 a workhorse and a very well known and accepted printer. I was surprised that it was not recognized while the Lexmark z53 was with the proviso that it might not work - it didn't! I configured the Hp-LJ-4 and found a large choice of drivers at both 300 & 600 dpi - none worked! In all cases I tried to print the test graphics. I changed the cable - same result. I changed the bios setting to `normal' for the lpt0 I tried the //localhost631 feature but all I get is a list of files. Something must be wrong but I don't know what? Can anybody help? thanks, serge --