ViewTouch© is the ORIGINAL Graphical Touchscreen Restaurant Point of Sale Interface, first created by restaurateur Gene Mosher and C programmer, Nick Colley, in 1986. Initial funding of code development beginning in 1986 was due to the financial support of Ed Ramsay. Barbara Mosher has been a financial supporter since 1986 and continuing into present day. ViewTouch was first demonstrated to the public at ComDex, Las Vegas, in November, 1986. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Comdex_1986.png Early funding was due, in part, by the generosity of John King, M.D., Chicago. The current version of ViewTouch was first created in 1995-98 by Gene Mosher and C Programmer, Richard Bradley. Major funding of the development of the code during the '95-'98 period is due to the courageous and very much appreciated efforts of Billy Foster. Extensive enhancement of the code was carried out from 2000-04 by Bruce King. Major funding of the development of the code during the '00-'04 period is due to the efforts of Doug DeLeeuw. Since the arrival of ViewTouch under the GNU Public License in 2014 ViewTouch code has been available at GitHub and a great deal of refinement and modernization of the code has taken place. Special thanks to Jack Morrison for amazing debugging skills, to NeroBurner (Reinhold Gschweicher) for major refactoring and standardization, and to NoOne558 (Ariel Brambila Pelayo) for upgrading the ViewTouch point of sale window manager's reliance upon X core fonts to Xft scalble fonts. Gene and Barbara Mosher have provided lifetime support and funding for ViewTouch from its inception. Gene owns the ViewTouch copyright. Gene began writing Point of Sale Code on an Apple ][ in 1979; his passion and vision has overseen the development, management and maintainance of the code on a wide array of computers and point of sale equipment across six decades.
With the availability of ViewTouch source code under the GPL and the arrival of the Raspberry Pi Foundation's computers a restaurateur can automate one's own restaurant. ViewTouch makes available all-in-one Point of Sale computers with a 15.8" touchscreen and Raspberry Pi 5 Compute Module, made by Chipsee, in Beijing, China. Thanks to the efforts of Pelya (Sergii Pylypenko) and Ariel Brambila Pelayo it is possible for hospitality staff to use mobile Android devices as wireless tableside order entry devices.
The availability of ViewTouch source code and documentation at GitHub benefits the clients, customers and associates of Gene Mosher, facilitating the enhancement and extention of ViewTouch source code.
An important link at the top of this page is the Wiki link. It contains a page with build instructions and an 'Announcements' page with the latest news.
ViewTouch is released under the GNU Public License, version 3.
The latest ViewTouch image for the Raspberry Pi can be downloaded, decompressed and copied to a 32Gb or larger microSD card. The image boots to the ViewTouch desktop, offers desktop support features for ViewTouch Point of Sale, and runs on Raspberry Pi computers 4 and 5.
These screenshots are in 1280 x 1024 resolution, however, default graphical resolution is 1920 x 1080.
Time Clock and Secure Log On
Order Breakfast, then Display and/or Print in Kitchen
A Lightning Fast, High Resolution Interface
Time Clock Review and Edit - Control Labor Expense
Back Office, Comprehensive Labor Costing, Overtime Alerts
Interactive Time Clock Review and Editing
Decision Support: Fly-Over, Drill-Down in Real Time
Touch 'n' View Any Day or Any Period Updated Every Minute
ViewTouch first ran as a C program on the Atari ST computers in 1986. The Atari ST was a very exciting platform under Jack Tramiel from 1985 until 1993/4. In 1995 development of ViewTouch under UNIX (AIX) was initiated. MIT's X Window System was chosen to build the ViewTouch network transparent graphical interface. This decision which was made for ViewTouch in early 1995. In 1997 a decision was made to move from AIX on the Motorola PowerPC to Linux on the Intel X86. In 2000 a transition from C to C++ took place. ViewTouch remains on Debian as the default distribution and features the XFCE desktop. Since 2016 the default hardware platform for Viewtouch is the family of Raspberry Pi computers. ViewTouch production POS computers provide a desktop icon which compiles and installs the latest version of the code from GitHub. ViewTouch Point of Sale isn't just about the advantage of the power of Linux; it's also about the advantages of the remote display capability of The X Window System. Just add the IP address of remote displays to the ViewTouch page 'View & Manage Displays & Printers'.
ViewTouch does not manage electronic payment processing. Please make your own decisions with regard to Electronic Funds Transfer functionality.