Cassette Tape Inventor Lou Ottens Has Passed Away

The inventor of the cassette tape , Lou Ottens , has buy the farm away , according toDe Telegraaf . He was 94 years old .

Ottens started work at Philips in 1952 , where he finally came up with the idea of the cassette tape after becoming head of the company ’s new intersection ontogenesis department in 1960 . Fed up with the old reel - to - spool tape system , which consisted of two disjoined reels on a bulky gimmick passing the plastic film from reel to the next ( like old - timey film projectors ) , Ottens decided to squinch the conception and put the reels into an enclosed gimmick that was easier to manipulate and tape transport .

In 1963 , the first cassette mag tape made its debut at an electronics honest with the shibboleth , “ little than a pack of cigarettes ! ” The idea was quickly replicate by other fellowship , but in different data formatting . From there , Ottens made a mint with Sony to globally circularize a standard cassette size using the Philips patent . The cassette reign the ‘ 70s and ‘ 80s , becoming one of most common format for prerecorded music . To date , more than 100 billion cassette tapes have been sell worldwide . Ottens also developed the candela , which again became a Sony - Philips standard and sold more than 200 billion to date , according toDutch News .

Illustration: Spencer Platt (Getty Images)

The cassette tape became so spectacular in popular acculturation that many books and movie were made about the chronicle of it . In 2016 , Ottens appear in the documentaryCassette : A Documentary Mixtape , which also boast rock and roll ex-serviceman like Henry Rollins , Thurston Moore , Ian MacKaye , and other musicians who released their early medicine on cassette tape . The infotainment is a heartwarming , nostalgic flavor at the chronicle of the cassette tape and why the formatting is still around today . In fact , cassette tape sales more than doubled in 2020 , according toNew Musical Express .

If you ’re like me , you have many memory of making mixtapes with your friend , record birdcall off the radio , winding the film back into the casing with a pencil , and figuring out if you put taping over the little square trap at the top of the cassette , you could turn it into a recordable cassette .

And for those of us who think back the conversion from cassette to CD to the original iPod , commemorate those “ dummy”cassettes with the 3.5 millimeter chaw ? When my Quaker and I got our first cars , they did not come with a candle player , but many of us had iPods . The way we play medicine from our iPods in the auto was with those cassette adapters . The other 2000s were all about adapting fresh tech to work with former tech , but thanks to Ottens ’ invention , I have so many good computer memory from those days and to begin with .

Lou Ottens as seen in Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape.

Lou Ottens as seen in Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape.Screenshot: YouTube

Ottens move back in 1986 , but was often asked if he was proud of his excogitation . “ I have no pride meter , ’’ Ottens said in aninterview with NRC.nl in 2018 , aim to the team exertion it take to make both the cassette and CD .

“ You ’re not a nostalgic individual are you ? ” Ottens was ask during an interview for Cassette : A Documentary Mixtape .

“ No , ” Ottens responded . “ The only affair I ’m nostalgic about is the citizenry I have been able to work with . That ’s a fine kind of nostalgia . ”

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