Lou Ottens

21.6.1926 – 6.3.2021 Lou Ottens, the Dutch engineer often credited with inventing the compact cassette has died, aged 94. Born on 21 June 1926, Ottens showed an early interest in electronics and, during the second world war, whilst still a teenager, built a radio with a directional antenna so his family could listen to Radio Oranje, a Dutch radio program broadcast by the BBC European Service to the German-occupied Netherlands during World War II. Ottens obtained a degree in engineering and gained employment at Philips’ factory in Hasselt, Belgium, in 1952. By 1960 he was heading up Philips’ product development department and was instrumental in developing the first Philips portable tape recorder (EL 3585). Despite being portable, it was an open-reel tape machine, using two spools of tape, which meant that users had…

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Australian HiFi (Digital) - 1 Issue, July - August 2021

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