NodeMcu Lua ESP8266 ESP-12E not flashing. [SOLVED]

Please tell me what I'm doing wrong.

I have about 20 x Geekcreit® NodeMcu Lua ESP8266 ESP-12E
I even have a ESP32 with the same results.
I have tried it on a 1) Ubuntu 19.04 laptop 2) Macbook Pro 2016 3) Windows 10 desktop.
Always the same results.
I've changed the port to show you the ubuntu, but i've tried "erase_flash" first. and you can see from the commands below that It even VERIFIES! and it's dead. I show the "screen" line but the IDE and CLI both say there's no connection.

The device blinks when it's being written to and if I plug it and unplug it or press the "reset" button it will blink once and nothing. (As if it's ready) but nothing.

the ONLY success (and I'm calling it as success) was on an OLD chromebook in dev mode where it at least showed giberrish (you know random characters with no reply)

I've tried the originan version 1.4 and I've tried the latest (see below)

What I am doing wrong. I've tried it on 3 different laptops on 3 8266 devices. with 5 different cables.
THis is crazy. Why does no one ever get this resolved in any of the posts where I see this asked?

Please show me where I'm being a morron and correct my mistakes. I'm happy to say I'm sorry and I'll be thankful. but am I the only one that can't get this to work?

$ sudo esptool.py --port /dev/ttyUSB0 --baud 460800 write_flash   --flash_freq 80m --flash_mode qio --flash_size 4MB-c1  0x0000 espruino_2v03_esp8266_4mb_combined_4096.­bin 
esptool.py v2.6
Serial port /dev/ttyUSB0
Connecting....
Detecting chip type... ESP8266
Chip is ESP8266EX
Features: WiFi
MAC: 60:01:94:70:84:30
Uploading stub...
Running stub...
Stub running...
Changing baud rate to 460800
Changed.
Configuring flash size...
Flash params set to 0x006f
Compressed 4194304 bytes to 351183...
Wrote 4194304 bytes (351183 compressed) at 0x00000000 in 8.0 seconds (effective 4190.3 kbit/s)...
Hash of data verified.

Leaving...
Hard resetting via RTS pin...


$ sudo esptool.py --port /dev/ttyUSB0 --baud 460800 verify_flash   --flash_freq 80m --flash_mode qio --flash_size 4MB-c1  0x0000 espruino_2v03_esp8266_4mb_combined_4096.­bin 
esptool.py v2.6
Serial port /dev/ttyUSB0
Connecting....
Detecting chip type... ESP8266
Chip is ESP8266EX
Features: WiFi
MAC: 60:01:94:70:84:30
Uploading stub...
Running stub...
Stub running...
Changing baud rate to 460800
Changed.
Configuring flash size...
Flash params set to 0x006f
Verifying 0x400000 (4194304) bytes @ 0x00000000 in flash against espruino_2v03_esp8266_4mb_combined_4096.­bin...
-- verify OK (digest matched)
Hard resetting via RTS pin...

$ screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200
[screen is terminating]