Thanks bobotwf,

I had thought about it, but didn't want to chance ruining the board. Turns out they aren't dorks. They went the simple and straight forward, basically a standard LPT or parallel port 26 IDC header to DB25F. I had to make up a male loopback tester or 'mirror' plug in Fadal speak. The diagnostics said the board and LPT cable should be OK. Then I wasted quite a bit of time messing with PC, com ports, software setting, and cables. I had a PC DB9 to VMC DB25M null modem, pin-outs verified OK per Fadal manual chapter 14. Tried and tried, no luck. Made up a simplified null modem with only RD/TD crossed and GND, all others loopback to PC and VMC. Still no luck. Then I had noticed some of the DNC vendors recommended a straight through on the TD/RD pins 2/3. Patched another 9pin null modem in front of the simplified 9/25 and viola. It finally worked.

Of course solve one problem and onto the next. The sample code I was trying to load gave a "Number is out of range" error. Guessing a calculation exceeding the range or resolution of the CNC 88. still very happy to be able to load programs. Wooha!