First, thank you for your input.
Just to be clear. I have been programming arduinos since 2014, and use them regularly in products I sell. I have 3 projects running on WIO terminals, 2 LED controllers and one environmental sensor array. I don’t have ONE board with this problem I now have three, all showing the same issue - no display with TFT_eSPI. In all cases when originally plugged in the game appeared and when I pressed a button - disappeared and the screen went dark. The only TFT_eSPI function that gets any response is the set brightness function which gives either a black screen at LOW or a grey screen at HIGH.
It is possible I did something that corrupted the devices source code on the first 2, but the third was not connected to a computer when the game disappeared, so I’m thinking low probability on that. It is also possible that I have the only 3 devices SEEED has ever sold with this problem, but the statistical probability of that is indistinguishable from ZERO.
They are working fine with the LovyanGFX library, as well as with CircuitPY, so there is something going on here about compatibility that is not obviously hardware related.
I’ll buy another one and test it out, but if I were running SEEED, I’d want these boards back in my shop to find out what is going on…
Thanks again for all your help.