Right - found my other screens.
Turns out the new marlin firmware on the mks base 1.5 is actually set up for a reprap full colour smartgraphics, NOT the mks tft touch screen. Well that explains that, but not the smoothieware where the screen was defnitely set for the tft.

So I happen to have the correct screen. plugged it in.
Powers up but nothing show on the screen.
This rings a vague bell from when i originally got the sbase board.
It's a dead screen :-(

So now I'm looking for the mks tft screen library for marlin in the hopes I can get the touch screen going. Failing that I still have an unused dirt basic 6 line lcd display I can use.

I'm beginning to regret I ever started this in the first place lol

Still if I can ever get the machine working again it should be worth it :-)