LOU OTTENS, INVENTOR OF THE AUDIO CASSETTE TAPE PASSES AWAY

Thu 11 March 2021:

Louis Ottens — the Dutch engineer credited with inventing the audio cassette tape — has died at the age of 94.

The icon of that nostalgic era, the man who ushered it all, resides now in heaven. Lou Ottens, who invented the cassette and pioneered the CD has passed away. He was 94

As per reports, Ottens passed away on March 6 in Duizel, Netherlands. His daughter has been quoted in news reports as saying that he passed away at an elder care center. The exact cause of his passing hasn’t yet been made public.

Ottens and his team developed audio cassette tape in the early 60s. He was head of Philips’ product department at the time. After they presented their creation at Berlin Radio electronics fair (1963) the invention changed how everyone experienced music.

A longtime engineer at the Dutch electronics and technology company Philips, Ottens — in his role as head of the product development department — led the Belgian team charged with converting the bulky reel-to-reel tape recorders of the era into something more portable and consumer-friendly; Ottens’ goal was to make a cassette tape that could fit a jacket’s inside pocket.

Ottens also spearheaded another invention, that of Compact Discs or CDs. He was part of the joint team of Philips and Sony that created the CD.

CDs are relevant till now and audio cassettes had a strong presence till the early 2000s. Mixtapes was the word for those who wanted to create custom music collection.