Lou Ottens, the Dutch inventor of the cassette tape and the first model of the cd, has passed some days away at the age of 94.
Ottens (1926 - 2021) was as manager of a Philips factory also the inventor of the compact cassette which was introduced in 1963. In an interview five years ago het said in all modesty he could not understand what people still saw in that outdated 'thing' in the 21st century.
In 1979, as director of the Audio Division of Philips, he laid also the foundation of the cd. In march that year, immediately after a press conference in Holland where it was shown, Ottens, a commercial colleague and a number of technicians, flew to Japan. In their luggage they had some compact discs and laboratory players. The purpose of the trip was to find supporters for making the compact disc the world standard.
The delegation visited a number of electronics companies, During that visit, Sony offered to further develop the system jointly. The introduction of the first players took place in Japan in October 1982. In 1986 the CD-ROM was introduced and in 1988 the CD-R (ecordable).
Lou Ottens subsequently became director of the Video Division, where Video 2000 was introduced at that time. He retired in 1986.
In the 1960s, Lou Ottens, then head of product development at the Belgian Hasselt branch of the Eindhoven company Philips, developed the cassette tape. In previous years, Ottens was annoyed with green and yellow tape recorders with the large reels and felt that something more user-friendly and especially something smaller should be replaced.
Hundred Billion
Ottens’ invention was a great success worldwide. More than 100 billion cassettes have been sold since its launch in 1963. But the bands disappeared after the release of the CD, which was developed twenty years later by the same Ottens together with a team of engineers. The CD also became a hit.
Decades later, Ottens told the Eindhovens Dagblad that in the 1960s he was completely unaware of the groundbreaking research he and his colleagues were doing. “Well, no. We were little boys who had fun playing. We didn’t feel like we were doing anything big. It was a kind of sport. ”
Pride
Later he was not really proud of his invention, he told NRC three years ago: “My pride has long since worn out. It was not a big event at the time either. You do not realize what comes of it. And you kept on going: the work never stopped. ”
https://netherlandsnewslive.com/inventor-of-cassette-tape-lou-ottens-passed-away-financial/107722/
https://hifi.nl/artikel/29825/In-memoriam-Lou-Ottens,-uitvinder-van-cassettebandje-en-compact-disc.html
