On March 6, 2021, Lodewijk Frederik Ottens aka Lou Ottens, died aged 94. He was inventor and engineer, known as the inventor of the audio cassette tape. Nearly 20 years after Philips introduced cassette tapes, Ottens helped the company to develop compact disc technology and, with Sony, to create audio format that would become the industry standard. In 2016, Ottens appeared in a film, “Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape”. The director, Zack Farmer, likened the creation of the cassette to “trying to paint a masterpiece on a postage stamp”.
Tag Archives: inventor
Edward Lodewijk Van Halen
On October 6, 2020, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen died aged 65. He was a musician (guitar), songwriter, producer, and inventor, known for his work with Michael Jackson, Brian May, Sammy Hagar, and LL Cool J, but best known as a founding member, songwriter, and guitarist of band Van Halen. He was voted number one in the “Guitar World” magazine reader’s poll for “The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”.
Peter Goldmark
On December 7, 1977, Peter Carl Goldmark (Hungarian: Goldmark Péter Károly) died aged 71. Goldmark was German-Hungarian inventor and engineer, who, during his work in “Columbia Records” in 1945, invented the long-playing microgroove 33-1/3 rpm record, which revolutionized the way people listened to music.