Lodewijk Frederik Ottens was a Dutch engineer and inventor, best known as the inventor of the cassette tape, and for his work in helping to develop the compact disc.
14 Facts About Lou Ottens
2.
Lou Ottens was employed by Philips for the entirety of his career.
3.
Lou Ottens showed an interest in technology and tinkering from an early age.
4.
Lou Ottens started in the mechanization department of the Main Industry Group in Eindhoven.
5.
In 1960, Lou Ottens became the head of the new product development department in Hasselt.
6.
Originally, Philips planned on working with RCA and using their RCA tape cartridge system cassette, but Lou Ottens found that the dimensions and tape speed of the set made it not suitable for their desired product.
7.
Lou Ottens started the design of the cassette by cutting a block of wood to fit into his jacket pocket.
8.
Lou Ottens managed a team of ten or twelve workers who had experience in designing gramophones and tape recorders to develop the cassette and its equipment.
9.
In 1972, Lou Ottens became technical director of Philips Main Industry Group Audio.
10.
However, Lou Ottens recognized that this was not a practical amount of playing time, and in 1972, he commissioned technicians to start testing with smaller discs.
11.
Lou Ottens was confronted with many technical problems very early after the release of the product.
12.
Also in 1984, Lou Ottens had his factory produce VHS machines that were practically identical to the Video 2000.
13.
Lou Ottens became chairman of the Dutch Association for Logistics Management in 1988.
14.
Lou Ottens was among the interviewees in director Zack Taylor's 2016 documentary film, Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape, and appeared at the East End Film Festival world premiere screening in London on June 24,2016.