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The ViewTouch All-in-One has been upgraded with the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5!
- 💰 Price: Only $350, includes shipping via air!
- 💳 Payment: Any credit or debit card accepted
- 📐 Mounting: Many VESA 75×75 mounting options available
- ⚡ Performance: Broadcom BCM2712 quad-core 64-bit Arm Cortex-A76 (Armv8) System-on-Chip @ 2.4GHz
- 📡 Connectivity: WiFi b/g/n/ac included
- 🖥️ Displays: Second 4K display can be attached
ViewTouch source code has undergone a very large assortment of improvements in the past few months of 2025, thanks to the AI-empowered efforts of Ariel!
- 🔤 Font Upgrade: Moving from static bit-mapped fonts to scalable Xft outline fonts
- 🆕 Modernization: Extensive code modernization
- 📱 Self-Order Feature: Public can now order food & beverages directly
- ✨ Many other enhancements too numerous to mention
Anyone visiting ViewTouch at GitHub can read about them in detail.
Since the first ViewTouch computer was shown to the public at ComDex Las Vegas in November of 1986, I have never been able to say that there has been such a thing as a computer specifically built by any company with any specific intent that it would be used as a ViewTouch PoS (point of sale) computer. Until now a ViewTouch PoS computer has only been so in name because it was running ViewTouch PoS software.
Today this all changes.
I am finally able to say, at long last, after 42 years of my lifetime creating Point of Sale software, that I can offer for sale a ViewTouch PoS computer.
In cooperation with the Chipsee company of China, this first-ever ViewTouch computer has several features which have been specifically integrated into their AIO-CM4-156 Raspberry Pi touchscreen computer by the Chipsee team.
- 📺 Display: 15.6" touchscreen
- 📡 Connectivity: WiFi included
- 💾 Storage: 32 Gb storage
- 📐 Mounting: Attaches to any 75mm VESA mounting hardware
- 🌡️ Performance: Processor remains very cool (95-98°F idling, 100-104°F in use)
- ⚡ Efficiency: Quad cores average only 1-3% load when in use
- 🚀 Speed: ViewTouch loads in less than 3 seconds
- 🔌 Design: Only single thin power cable visible, easily concealable
- 🖥️ Second Display: Can be attached for prep personnel to see upcoming orders
- 🌍 Multi-Unit: When multiple ViewTouch PoS computers are in use, only one runs the program and manages data storage
- 🔄 Transparent Sessions: Successive computers receive graphical touchscreen sessions over the network
- ♾️ Scalability: No real-world limit to the number of ViewTouch PoS computers in a network
- 💵 Price: Approximately $400
- 📦 Shipping: $100 FedEx from Beijing + nominal bank fees ($30 international)
- ⏱️ Delivery: One week via FedEx
- 🛠️ Software & Support: $49 monthly
ViewTouch can now be used by hospitality customers to enter their food and beverages!
A longstanding customer (restaurant operator using ViewTouch and paying $9 monthly for support) called and asked if I could configure ViewTouch so that his customers could enter their own orders. He was losing a waitress and facing replacement costs in this era of $5/hour wages and 32% government taxes on wages. He also noted the difficulty in finding people who want to work!
I traveled to the customer's location and worked on this challenge. With the interface changes made, he has been able to continue operations without hiring replacement staff. The overwhelming majority of his customers have accepted and welcomed this new approach.
My original vision for ViewTouch in the 1980's was that the 'Order Entry Touchscreen' was designed for use by restaurant customers, not restaurant employees. In the years since 1986, those copying ViewTouch ideas never understood this important aspect.
I am truly delighted that ViewTouch customers are boldly returning to my original vision of customers entering their own food and beverages rather than relying on wait staff. The reduction of revenue spent on labor results in a very significant increase in restaurant profitability.
We now live in a world where people have no aversions to using touchscreens and quite literally expect that they should be able to use touchscreens in restaurants to enter their own choices and preferences from the menu.
I look forward to offering this special new version of ViewTouch to all of our customers!
July 25, '21: The latest ViewTouch image file is available. A second new image file is also available - an auxiliary support image file meant to reside on a USB Flash drive. This turns a USB Flash Drive into a device which can transfer a user's data files and data history to another Raspberry Pi computer.
June 6, '21: Since the arrival of the Raspberry Pi (RPi) computers, a new era has unfolded for ViewTouch point of sale users. The 'hardware' has become universally affordable and available; what was once merely a dream is now a very satisfactory reality.
ViewTouch Point of Sale, the hardware and the software ViewTouch runs on is 100% focused on or based upon Linux and GNU-licensed Free Software.
A relatively recent development benefiting ViewTouch users is the ViewTouch Desktop! The ViewTouch Desktop is part of the ViewTouch bootable image file downloadable from the ViewTouch Web site.
A score (20!) of icons on the ViewTouch Desktop make it very easy to:
- 🔄 Refresh (reboot)
- ⬆️ Update all software
- 📚 Access extensive documentation
- 💾 Safely preserve and restore data when upgrading
- 🌐 Configure network connections and printers
- ✨ And much more!
May 16, '21: ViewTouch now builds with:
- GCC: G++ 8, 9, 10 (C++17) and G++ 10 (C++20)
- Clang: Clang 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (C++17) and Clang 10 (C++20)
NeroBurner has once again outdone himself by completing significant refactoring and performance improvements in the ViewTouch code base. In resolving some longstanding omissions in the ViewTouch bootstrap sequence, NeroBurner refactored the bootstrap sequence by rebasing it with the standardized curl component, libcurl and its C++ wrapper.
libcurl is a portable, powerful, and often-used network transfer library.
There are restaurants as far away as Australia using ViewTouch, and restaurants that have been using ViewTouch for twenty years!
Restaurants enrolled in ViewTouch support at $49/month typically receive:
- 🖥️ New Raspberry Pi computer at no cost every few years
- 🎨 Help perfecting menu interface and tweaking PoS settings
- 💰 Wholesale prices on peripherals: touchscreens, printers, tablets, cash drawers
There is nothing more important about a point of sale solution than:
- 🔒 Reliability
- 💵 Low cost
- 🔄 Versatility
- 🎯 Intuitive menu interface
There is no point of sale solution which can match ViewTouch on these terms.
C++ programmers, whether novice, intermediate, or expert, are invited to freely examine, study, copy, and even refactor or improve the ViewTouch C++ code base by replacing existing functionality with standardized components!
You not only help yourself but also help others around the world who rely on ViewTouch point of sale to run their restaurants more efficiently, professionally, and easily.
A point of sale system is absolutely necessary for restaurant operators who want to make the most of technology, enabling hospitality staff to work together as a technology-enabled workgroup.
To think that this can be done using Raspberry Pi computers and Android tablets is quite literally a dream come true — the dream that I had as a restaurant owner/operator in the 1970's!!
The latest image features all of the refactored code which NeroBurner has contributed since June, 2018. The details of his vast contributions are too comprehensive to even begin to mention here.
Select '...' > 'Insights' > 'Network' to see them!
Samsung Tab tablets make great ViewTouch terminals!
Android Tablets make great ViewTouch terminals. The ViewTouch POS image for the Raspberry Pi includes an enhanced ViewTouch desktop with a QR code which tablets can read to automatically install the ViewTouch X Server software on the tablet.
99% of the refactoring has been accomplished through the efforts of NeroBurner. I traveled to Vienna to meet and work with him. There are not enough talented, hard-working free software developers like NeroBurner in this world.
His contribution to free software is unique because he understands the need for comprehensive solutions in specific use cases for vertical markets such as Hospitality Point of Sale — the world's largest such market.
NeroBurner's approach to the ViewTouch code base shows the way forward. It is characterized by a mastery of modern development tools: C++, Qt Creator, SourceTrail, and Git debugging itself.
A reworking of time & date code has been merged into ViewTouch's GitHub Master branch.
My gratitude to NeroBurner on behalf of the ViewTouch community, resulting in the integration of Howard Hinnant's tz.h library as a replacement for the custom time/date handling code which ViewTouch relied upon until now.
This is a major step forward. The tz.h library is a date and time library based on the C++11/14/17 header.
This enhancement heralds the arrival of a very much modernized and standardized version of a key foundational component of the ViewTouch source code. The tz.h library is a complete parser of the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) Time Zone Database.
August 1, 2018: This refinement is the result of recent contributions of the CMake-based configuring system by NeroBurner. CMake provides and manages the ViewTouch software compilation process using simple platform and compiler independent configuration files. It generates native makefiles and workspaces that can be used in the development environment of one's choice.
September 4, 2017: The 1080p resolution of the ViewTouch graphical interface has made it possible to enhance the source code based explanatory text in several pages of ViewTouch which will help new users with the initial configuration and setup which customizes it for their specific needs.
The vt_data file found in /usr/viewtouch/bin complements the source code and routinely is refined with new enhancements in the user interface.
There is a method of building hospitality menus which makes it easy to establish uniform 'Tabs' on Index and Item pages. Tabs are essential in a hospitality interface because they make it possible to navigate to any Menu Item page with one touch.
Tabs must be positioned consistently across all Index and Item pages.
This method automatically builds all the Tabs for these pages and positions them consistently across all Index and Item pages, significantly reducing the time it takes to build an interface while substantially improving it!
Send me an email and I'll explain how to activate this feature in your menu.
- 📊 RAM Usage: The TOP utility reports that ViewTouch uses one percent of the RAM on a Raspberry Pi Model 4B!
- ✅ Compatibility: ViewTouch has no difficulty running on the Model 3 A+'s 512 Mb RAM
- 📺 Resolution: Default resolution for ViewTouch is 1920 × 1080 (1080p)
- 🖥️ Recommended Display: 22" touchscreen is the Acer UT241Y