Ralph - dont get you ******** in a twist.
You are doing the big bang approach and something is wrong, You will not find the answer.
Disconnect any connections to your lathe/mill or the stepper motor drivers. The only thing you should have connected to your computer is the LPT1 cable and a breakout board. You will need to use your breakout board, because 3.3v out from your computer is not sufficient to drive the stepper drivers directly.
I suggest you use Mach 3 turn for these tests - it makes no difference.
Open Mach3 turn at the Manual page
Go to Config/Ports and Pins. On the Port setup and Axis selction page, ensure that Port 1 is enabled. On the Motor outputs page DISABLE all the outputs. On the spindle set up page, un-tick the Disable spindle relays. Enter Output 1 at Clockwise and output 2 at CCW.
Goto Output signals page and under OUTPUT#1, enter Port 1, Pin 1.
Check your breakout board and see what voltage is on Pin 1.
It should be 0volts (or very near) - If it is 5 volts or near have a look at Output Signals again and see if Output#1 is ticked as active low. If it is, untick it.
With your mouse, on the Manual Page of Turn, click the spindle icon.
The signal on pin 1 should now change to 5volts (or very near). Click spindle again, and it should return to 0v.
You can check all your pins in this manner and see exactly what is happening by altering the pin setting of Output Signals/Output #1.
The pin numbers you can use are on the page in front of you.
Once you are satisfied that all your pins are working correctly,
Go to Ports and Pins and enable the x axis, and enter port 1, pin2 and port 1 pin 3 on the step and dir positions (do not forget the ports)
Connect up your pin2 to the step input on your stepper driver card, pin 3 to your dir input and do not forget the signal ground connection, which can be any of pins 18 to 25. Connect a stepper motor to your driver board (with the appropriate power suppy) and see if you can control the motor using the jogging facility on the Manual page.
The rest is just more of the same. I used Mach3 Turn because it has a manual spindle on'off. The set up of Turn and Mill are identical.
If you have had any luck so far, you can change to Mill and try and set that up the same way.
Jim.