Work around for non-working touchscreen

The question of a non-working touchscreen on the old Sony HC30 mini DV camera has come up in the past, but I have a couple of questions that were not answered. I went thru all the troubleshooting steps including a reset and the touchscreen appears to be working as far as sensing the touch but I cannot do anything, including playing tapes. Two questions: the battery is not accepting a charge, but the AC adapter is working just fine. Does a non-charging battery have any impact on the touchscreen? Last question; as a work-around to a non-working touchscreen, can I just buy a $10 remote to play tapes rather than trying to troubleshoot starting with a flex cable replacement? The remote seems like the way to go if that would work.....