I need LOTS of help

Sorry about the terminology, I really don't know what I'm talking
about.
PLEASE help me if you can.

I aquired an old mill and a little blue box that came with it.
It used to be plugged up to a PC running Linux and EMC. I personally
know nothing about this kind of stuff except what EMC is and what it
does. The blue box has a working power supply, but I'm told the
motherboard is fried. It also has three little black boxes(stepper
drivers) inside which, I guess, control X Y and Z motion. Connecting
to each of these black boxes are wires coming from the power supply,
wires leading to the three ports where my mill's three stepper motors
plug in, and wires leading to the motherboard(I say motherboard, but
it looks like a board that just connects the parallel and serial
ports to the stepper drivers. I guess the pc running EMC originally
attached to the parallel port on the back of the blue box. Is it
possible to connect the stepper drivers directly to pins on the
parallel port, without using the motherboard? If so how would I do
it? If not where could I get a new motherboard?

I will be using DeskNCDS from www.deskam.com, even though I don't
think it makes a difference.

ANY information would be extremely appreciated. Thanks alot.

Mark McEver