TTL to differential converter (STEP / DIR / ENABLE)

Yes. that's correct but looking at the parport driver,
you may be able to do this by inverting the desired
output pin by using the out-invert parameter.

linuxcnc.org/docs/html/hal/parallel-port.html

[This would have the advantage that it would likely  work in reset mode
(which doubles the possible step rate at a given base thread rate)