Hardware

The default hardware to run ViewTouch on is the Chipsee all-in-one touchscreen computer shown on the ViewTouch.com homepage. It is a 15.6" Full High Definition (1920x1080) touchscreen with integrated Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 L (lite). The microSD card is running Debian 11 Bullseye (Linux version 5.10.78) with the ext4 filesystem and is available from Gene Mosher at the ViewTouch web site. The Compute Module 4 Broadcom v7 Quad Core processor is overclocked at 2000 Mhz under load, holding a very safe temperature at 108 Fahrenheit. Idling at 800 to 1000 Mhz (i.e., 99.99% of the time) processor temperature falls to 105 Fahrenheit. The graphics processor is overclocked at 825 Mhz. During boot the processor is held at 2000 Mhz. After 30 seconds the processor returns to idle.

ViewTouch is designed to run on any touchscreen monitor capable of FHD (1920 x 1080) resolution. 21" to 24" monitors are commonly used, too. Some of these have integral USB hubs which allow the Raspberry Pi Zero to be used. A keyboard and mouse are needed when building or editing menus in ViewTouch but are not needed during typical day to day use. Raspberry Pi computers are small enough to be readily attachable with velcro to the rear of touchscreens. The performance characteristics and capacity of these devices is a hundredfold greater than what ViewTouch requires of them.

Bixolon Printers and Cash Drawers are recommended. These can be managed with great ease by the CUPS printer management software package included in Debian and virtually all Linux distributions. A great advantage of these printers is that they include USB, BlueTooth, WiFi and wired network interfaces and PPD files. Powerline Network Adapters printers can be placed anywhere in a building and connected directly to the network! A tip for all: To set up a Bixolon printer with the network IP address of your choice, follow the directions at http://www.viewtouch.com/installprinter.html.

The first ViewTouch touchscreen in a restaurant, then, is a monitor which is attached to the computer running ViewTouch, while additional touchscreen displays need only be Android tablets or Chrome devices. Only one computer running ViewTouch is needed, no matter how many touchscreen terminals might be getting their display over the WiFi network from the single ViewTouch computer. Even the Raspberry Pi Zero W has been tested and found to work well driving a touchscreen terminal.