Audio cassette tape Inventor, Lou Ottens, has passed away at the age of 94.
According to his family, The Dutch engineer died in his hometown of Duizel last weekend.
Born in Bellingwolde on June 21, 1926, Ottens had shown an interest in technology and tinkering from an early age.
As a teenager during the World War II, he constructed a radio he would use to secretly listen to Radio Oranje broadcasts. To avoid Nazi jammers, he created the radio with a primitive directional antenna.
After the World War II, he began attending the Delft University of Technology where he studied mechanical engineering. While in the institution, he worked part time as a drafting technician for an x-ray tech factory.
In 1952, Lou Ottens was hired by Philips, a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation. In 1960, he was promoted to head of the firm’s product development department, where he unveiled the EL 3585, Philips’s first portable tape recorder.
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Two years later, he made his breakthrough after championing the idea; that a cassette tape that fits into one’s pocket was workable.
His invention had revolutionised the way people listened to music globally and about 100 billion cassette tapes have been sold since its introduction in the ’60s.
Written by Oluwatobi Olusola