PLEASE HELP: Sherline lathe/driver box + mesa: steppers only move 1 direction

I am at my wits end about this issue and am hoping someone can help me. I bought a sherline cnc lathe with the 4 axis driver box. I want to convert it to a more advanced cnc system with limit switches/etc so I bought a mesa 7i96s. Since the sherline driver box uses a parallel port, I looked up which pins on the parallel port on the driver box correspond to what (Such as pin 6 = z dir, 7 = z step, etc) I then used breadboard wires to individually connect the sherline parallel port pins to the associated pins in the mesa board and used pncconf.

However, I get two issues: first, the x axis does not move, but I am tabling this. The second issue is the focus: the Z axis ONLY moves backwards.

I connected sherlines Z dir to the dir+ and gnd to gnd of the stepgen pin row. I used a multimeter and verified the dir+ pin was working (it shifts to 5v when jog+ and stays at 0 when jog-). HOWEVER in halmeter or halshow I do not register any axistest.dir pin value changes, nor can i specifically find the 7i96s.stepgen.dir pin!! 

EDIT: I verified that halmeter and halshow do register the dir pin and it is working correctly, so i guess this means it is the mesa driver box or wiring that is the issue?

So I am completely confused on if this is an issue with the driver box/sherline or with the mesa/pnconcf/linuxcnc. My wiring to the axis looks correct.

PLEASE HELP

Or the drivers maybe operating in a way that is contrary to expectations and may only work that way for evermore. Or as we locally “it’s @&$) mate”
I’d be looking inside the control box to see if the previous owner had done previous owner things or if some components have holes or bulges where they shouldn’t and hence the reason it was sold.

For what it's worth... I'm also just now setting up my Sherline 5800 NexGen Mill using the Sherline 4-axis Driver Box (PN 8760) via parallel port cable connection to my desktop computer with fresh install of LinuxCNC.

When I ran the Stepconf Wizard... only advanced each of my three axis steppers in single steps in ONE DIRECTION. Cannot figure out how to make step in other direction.

Do any Sherline Mill and Sherline Driver Box users here have advice on correct Stepconf settings for Sherline mills?