Lou Ottens, inventor of the cassette tape, has died at 94
The inventor of cassette technology, Lou Ottens, died at the age of 94 at his home in Duizel, Brabant, Belgium. It was in 1963 that the first plastic encased cassette tape was presented at an electronics fair with the slogan “smaller than a pack of cigarettes!”
That said, Ottens, who retired in 1986, said in an interview that he was not on board with the recent cassette tape boom, saying, “nothing could beat the sound of a CD.”
Beginning his career at Philips in 1952. Eight years later, he was named to the top spot of the product development department. By 1961 Ottens and his team had created the first portable tape recorder, and in 1963 the cassette tape, which revolutionized the much-larger reel-to-reel tape system.
The tapes were quickly copied by the Japanese but in different formats, so Ottens made a deal with Sony to use the mechanism patented by Philips to introduce a standard cassette. That model had a global rollout and DutchNews.nl reports that over 100 billion units were sold worldwide.
But Ottens wasn’t done innovating: He went on to develop the compact disc, which again became a Sony-Philips standard and which sold over 200 billion units.
At: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/lou-ottens-cassette-creator-dies-165139012.html
Dutch engineer Lou Ottens, 1926-2021, and his famous creation.
Over 100 billion cassette tapes have been sold since Philips introduced them in 1963 - but not satisfied with the sound quality, Ottens helped introduce the CD in 1982.
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