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The Tontec screen: an AI agent finally fixed it

The problem. Years ago I bought a Tontec touchscreen add-on to go with a Raspberry Pi and an acrylic case. The screen, its software and its instructions were always clunky. I think it worked exactly once; then I changed something, it stopped, and troubleshooting it was beyond me at the time. The screen and the Pi sat abandoned.

What I built. Once AI agents could act on their own, they became capable of serious troubleshooting. So I pointed Claude at my Pi and the display and let it sort things out. The key find: this board's backlight is active-low, so every stock driver switched it off while the panel was drawing frames perfectly well. With that fixed, plus the wiring, the current display-driver setup and touch calibration, it worked.

What happened. No other guide existed, so we were obligated to share: the recipe is public. The screen now runs Moonbase, my home terminal.

What I learned. Problems that were beyond me a few years ago aren't anymore. Hardware I had given up on came back to life because an agent could troubleshoot it, and it did a great job.