Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Dutch inventor of the cassette tape, Lou Ottens, dies age 94

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Dutch inventor of the cassette tape, Lou Ottens, dies age 94

    Dutch inventor of the cassette tape, Lou Ottens, dies age 94 | | kmov.com was also, supervisor of the team that developed the Compact Disc at Phillips.

  • #2
    I owned a Philiips 1700 about 1979 the first vcr

    Comment


    • #3
      Dad had the first Philips 1500 cassette VCR. Lots of memories of that also being demoed at a trade show in London. They had about 15 set up and nearly half had failed by the end of the day=new tech but not quite ready for market at the time.

      Christmas 1972 we set off for London to collect the 1500 VCR and back then although you could order the new recorder tapes were limited to 2 with each machine I seem to recall. Dad later got hold of some Dupont tapes which would happily snap pretty much all the time.

      Good times in my many film adventures with Dad.

      Click image for larger version

Name:	vcr.jpg
Views:	282
Size:	22.2 KB
ID:	29822

      Comment


      • #4
        How many people remember that at first the audio cassette tape system was called the "Compact Cassette"?

        Comment


        • #5
          I do Brian!

          Although I was just a young kid from Canada having recently moved to England, I remember that all of a sudden in the early 1970's the cassette-players became all the rage and superceded the reel-to-reel tape recorders for ease and convenience. I remember getting the most basic cassette-recorder probably for my 11th or 12th birthday 😊

          I remember that the really big 'hi-tech' piece of equipment to have back then was the 'Radio-Cassette' player (which I suppose later morphed into the 'ghetto-blaster') and my father got my mum a Ferguson make of one of these for her birthday - at the time it cost about £60 and Ferguson was considered to be one of the better quality manufacturers of the time.

          Of course the real joy of such machines was the fact that you could use the tape facility to 'internally' record straight from the radio, and therefore tape the pop-charts etc...

          In due course, my late mother sort of introduced a 'carrot and stick' system for her children. When we each reached the age of 15 (and starting the exam-years of our schooling) we each would get an 'Angle-Poise' lamp and a decent Radio-Cassette player for our birthdays - the lamp was to provide us with sufficient illumination for our after-school studies in our own bedrooms, whilst the Radio-Cassette player would allow us some background musical accompaniment 😉

          Unfortunately, in my case it didn't work as I always hated school my whole life up to the day I left! 😆

          Comment


          • #6

            Comment


            • #7
              this is the model I had

              Comment


              • #8
                It didnot have a pause button

                Comment


                • #9
                  Tim Christian was a very early member of this Forum, he joined the GOF the first week it opened back in 2003. After we became friends, he told me that he worked at Philips in the Netherlands in Compact Disc development. He must have known Lou Ottens.

                  He said that CD has enough data redundancy that a huge scratch across the surface won't stop the disc from playing. I've never had a disk I hate enough to try that one on.

                  Tim met his (English) wife in the Netherlands. They moved home after they got married and later had a son. Both parents spoke Dutch but their son never learned. Man! I wish my wife and I had something like that when my son was growing up!

                  He brought his left drive VW beetle to England after he returned home. He said that a couple of times when his wife was driving he'd read a newspaper in the right seat and watch people's reactions when they saw him!
                  Last edited by Steve Klare; March 12, 2021, 05:28 AM.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    AS long as the scratch was from the centre out across the tracks that was right. If it was a circular scratch along the tracks it would ruin it. That is why they say do not clean CDs by putting a cloth on them and rotating it, just brush from the centre outwards.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Brian

                      I still have a couple of Philips "Compact Cassette" that after buying them around the 1972-73 mark, still work after almost 47 years. I had a listen to one of the Beatles recorded from an LP long ago last night just to see if it still works and it did. The recording sounded pretty good on my Akai stereo tape deck

                      Back in 1972 I bought a wee "Bush" cassette recorder, although it no longer works I still have it. Along with the tapes its been everywhere. I remember using it at a bit of a party in a cabin on the old Australis crossing the Pacific North Bound Nov 74. The officer of arms got a complaint about the music from a nearby cabin, and we were asked to turn it down. Looking at that little player you would not think it could make a lot of noise. Incidentally the officer of arms just happen to be Scottish as well, and after we turned it down joined the party.

                      I still have all my cassettes from the 70s on and in many cases they still work fine.
                      Click image for larger version  Name:	P1170932.JPG Views:	0 Size:	75.8 KB ID:	29897
                      Click image for larger version  Name:	P1170931.JPG Views:	0 Size:	158.9 KB ID:	29898
                      My Bush cassette recorder .
                      Click image for larger version  Name:	P1110083.JPG Views:	0 Size:	97.8 KB ID:	29899
                      Click image for larger version  Name:	P1110081.JPG Views:	0 Size:	110.7 KB ID:	29900
                      Click image for larger version  Name:	P1110082.JPG Views:	0 Size:	161.4 KB ID:	29901

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        I found a "Walkman" type cassette player at the back of a cupboard that I had won in a raffle at a Derann open day a couple of weeks ago. The headphones had long gone but with new batteries and connected to an amp it still played fine.

                        The only real non-starter in the cassette world was the larger 3 3/4 ips 1/4" tape system the Elcasset, which never caught on. I suspect the people who used 1/4" reel to reel had too much already invested in it to change and others were happy with the, by then almost equal quality Compact Cassette, with Chrome tapes and Dolby noise reduction.
                        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elcaset

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Also,by the mid 70"s,the Japanese were making fabulous cassette decks that performed so well,a lot of people including me, sold off their LP"s after transcribing them onto cassette.You could get 2 such LP"s on a single c90 cassette.
                          In hindsight,good as the cassette was, it would have been better to keep the LP"s,but thats a different story.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Cassettes are still being made, Blank and Pre-recorded by

                            National Audio Company, USA.

                            Analogue Media Technologies Inc, CANADA.

                            Tapeline, UK.


                            https://www.nationalaudiocompany.com/

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Edward Nicielnik View Post
                              It didnot have a pause button
                              AH! You could hold the play button down half way on the 1500 machine and it would display a still picture. We did just that for a newspaper reporter wanting a picture off one of Dad's early 70s VCR recordings. Yes really.

                              Taking of AUDIO CASSETTES we have a guy on our street who has recordings of the UK charts radio programme dating way back. Those old C60 Philips tapes are still playing and quite a listen.

                              First Cassette player I had was in the late 60's and a Philips similar to the first one. Good times!

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X