by Mike Usinger on March 11th, 2021 at 6:01 PM
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Lou Ottens has gone to another place, leaving the world to wonder whether or not he ever truly understood the exquisite misery and unbridled joy he was once responsible for.
The Dutch-born inventor, who died on March 6 at age 94, created the cassette tape. Employed by the Netherlands-based Philips tech company, he helped develop analog magnetic tape that could be used for recording and playback.
Determined to design a format that was thinner and more portable than reel-to-reel, Ottens eventually came up with the two-spool cassette. First presented to the world in September of 1963 at the Berlin Radio Show, the format became a runaway smash, racking up the adjusted-for-inflation equivalent of $1.2 billion in sales by the end of the decade.