adafruit 2.8 tft lcd touchscreen free sample

"In the TFTLCD Library folder, you will need to edit TFTLCD.h. On about line 12, you will see "#define USE_ADAFRUIT_SHIELD_PINOUT". Comment out this line and save the file."
I have done this, saved the file, reopened arduino.exe, loaded the graphicstest example that comes with the TFT LCD library and tried to verify/compile it, but here I get errors:
"Start at the end of the TFT (other side than the power pins) and in order connect the pins to digital 7 thru 2. If you"re using a mega, connect the TFT Data Pins #0-7 to Mega pins #22-29, in that order. Those Mega pins are on the "double" header.
Connect the seventh pin RST (Reset) to the Arduino Reset line. This will reset the panel when the Arduino is Reset. You can also use a digital pin for the LCD reset but this will save us a pin."
When I run either the graphicstest or the tftbmp example, the identification part works now, but the screen doesnt display anything other than the backlight, and a quick flicker (<20ms or so) at the exact moment something is drawn to the screen.
I have browsed 70 pages of forum searchresults on "2.8 TFT", but pretty much everyone who had this issue has gotten an offer for a replacement, so I am unsure how to move forward from here.
adafruit_support wrote:Do you have access to a standard Arduino (Duemilanove, UNO)? If you can run on that with the unmodified software then you know the display is good.

To download. click the DOWNLOADS button in the top right corner, rename the uncompressed folder Adafruit_ILI9341. Check that the Adafruit_ILI9341 folder contains Adafruit_ILI9341.cpp and Adafruit_ILI9341.
Place the Adafruit_ILI9341 library folder your arduinosketchfolder/libraries/ folder. You may need to create the libraries subfolder if its your first library. Restart the IDE

I am trying to follow the instructions provided by the vendor https://learn.adafruit.com/2-8-tft-touch-shield/touchscreen-paint-example to no avail. Specifically:

In this Arduino touch screen tutorial we will learn how to use TFT LCD Touch Screen with Arduino. You can watch the following video or read the written tutorial below.
As an example I am using a 3.2” TFT Touch Screen in a combination with a TFT LCD Arduino Mega Shield. We need a shield because the TFT Touch screen works at 3.3V and the Arduino Mega outputs are 5 V. For the first example I have the HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor, then for the second example an RGB LED with three resistors and a push button for the game example. Also I had to make a custom made pin header like this, by soldering pin headers and bend on of them so I could insert them in between the Arduino Board and the TFT Shield.
Here’s the circuit schematic. We will use the GND pin, the digital pins from 8 to 13, as well as the pin number 14. As the 5V pins are already used by the TFT Screen I will use the pin number 13 as VCC, by setting it right away high in the setup section of code.
I will use the UTFT and URTouch libraries made by Henning Karlsen. Here I would like to say thanks to him for the incredible work he has done. The libraries enable really easy use of the TFT Screens, and they work with many different TFT screens sizes, shields and controllers. You can download these libraries from his website, RinkyDinkElectronics.com and also find a lot of demo examples and detailed documentation of how to use them.
After we include the libraries we need to create UTFT and URTouch objects. The parameters of these objects depends on the model of the TFT Screen and Shield and these details can be also found in the documentation of the libraries.
So now I will explain how we can make the home screen of the program. With the setBackColor() function we need to set the background color of the text, black one in our case. Then we need to set the color to white, set the big font and using the print() function, we will print the string “Arduino TFT Tutorial” at the center of the screen and 10 pixels down the Y – Axis of the screen. Next we will set the color to red and draw the red line below the text. After that we need to set the color back to white, and print the two other strings, “by HowToMechatronics.com” using the small font and “Select Example” using the big font.

The 2.8″ TFT LCD with Touchscreen Breakout Board with a MicroSD Socket and an ILI9341 controller display can be used to add a graphical user interface (GUI) to a project. The TFT (thin-film transistor) LCD (liquid crystal display) has a resolution of 240×320 pixels, which allows it to display detailed images and text. The touchscreen feature allows users to interact with the display by touching the screen. The MicroSD socket can be used to store and access data from a MicroSD card. The ILI9341 controller is responsible for driving the display and handling touch input. This breakout board can be used with a microcontroller to create a GUI for a project or application.

Add some jazz & pizazz to your project with a color touchscreen LCD. This TFT display is big (2.8" diagonal) bright (4 white-LED backlight) and colorful! 240x320 pixels with individual RGB pixel control, this has way more resolution than a black and white 128x64 display. As a bonus, this display has a resistive touchscreen attached to it already, so you can detect finger presses anywhere on the screen.
Adafruit wrapped up this display into an easy-to-use breakout board, with SPI connections on one end and 8-bit on the other. Both are 3-5V compliant with high-speed level shifters so you can use with any microcontroller. If you"re going with SPI mode, you can also take advantage of the onboard MicroSD card socket to display images. (microSD card not included, but any will work)
Ms.Josey
Ms.Josey