DUIZEL, NETHERLANDS (03.15.2021) – Lou Ottens, the Dutch inventor of the cassette tape, had died.
An estimated 100 billion cassette tapes have been sold worldwide, according to Philips, the company he began working for in 1952. Ottens also supervised the team that developed the compact disc (CD).
An engineer by trade, five years after joining Philips, Ottens became the head of the company’s product development department at its audio plant in Hasselt, Belgium.
In 1960, Ottens and his team developed the first portable tape recorder. At the time, all recorders used the reel-to-reel system, which meant the tape had to be manually wound. He revolutionized recorders two years later by inventing the compact cassette. Because of the laborious nature of the reel-to-reel process, Ottens wanted to simplify the process, said his family.
Ottens cut a block of wood that would fit into the side of his jacket pocket to find an ideal size for the new carrier. The block became the model after which the first portable cassette recorder was made, said Philips.
In 1963, the development of the cassette and the playback device had done so well that they were presented at the Internationale Funkausstellung — a trade exhibition for audio products — in Berlin.
Guests from Japan were inspired by his invention. The cassette was quickly copied by Japanese manufacturers into a different format and sold onto the Japanese market. The cassette recorder was a huge hit around the world, but particularly with young people in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
Ottens supervised the team that invented the CD, which was produced extensively by Sony-Philips and sold more than 200 billion copies worldwide. He retired in 1986.
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