no motion in stepconf test or axis

hi all
is this the corect place to post this inquiry? I put EMC on a 3 axis mill and can't get any motion in stepconf 'test axis' or Axis front end in EMC
After I take Axis out of Estop, enable limit overrides flickers, and 3 randomly flash arrows point to the right side of the axis registers in the backplot window. I tried inverting the step/dir and limit switch pins in stepconf, all 4 combinations, no difference.
Would anyone have an idea what's wrong with this setup? I'm not sure the parallel port is OK, is there a test for it?
Is it OK to post to this area with this sort of request?
regards,
Denis

Hi John,
thanks for the reply. I tried a smaller desktop router with almost identical wiring and got it to jog OK but when I tried running EMC with the new config file it wouldn't home X, and there was no motion at all. I exited EMC and found in my home directory I had a file named Ttech and a directory named Ttech, both had different code in them. Should the file be nested in the directory? There is a Mmate directory and file also from the first attempt at getting a configuration, both with different code too.
I just tried answering your first post a couple of minutes ago and got a message ' code not correct ' message and lost the message and had to log in again - am I doing something wrong so I get kicked out?

Hi John,
I got the table running now on EMC 2.3 I had to invert the logic signal from the limit switches. Thanks for your suggestions.
My objective now is to get this machine to home which appears to have different meanings to everyone, so I'll try desciribing my requirements.
I'd like the machine to jog each axis to a preditermined location by having each individual axis activate it's software limit and then move off the switch in opposite direction a pre determined distance, then set the position register for that axis to zero on the display. I tried to set the home switch velocity in step.conf but all the entries are grayed out. Should I start a new thread for this inquiry or just carry on here?
I don't know why I got booted out of the login session either, but it happened twice in a row. I'm sure it's some behaviour with this Debian sidux distro. Sometimes I have to make 2 requests to go to a website. After I logged in again everything was normal. Strange.?

I just tried replying and got booted out again, but I saved the reply in vi first. The message was code incorrect, whatever that means. Got kicked out of the login, and lost all the text from the reply mail form.
If anyone knows why my Debian Sidux is reacting this way please let me know. I'm sure it's related to internet links in emails also, same sort of behaviour.
cheers
Denis