Lou Ottens, inventor of the magnetic tape and a CD pioneer died aged 94 at his range in Duizel in Brabant on Saturday, Dutch media report. Ottens, who studied to be an engineer, started working for Philips in 1952. Eight years later he became head of the firm’s recently introduced development department. Within a year he and his team had developed the primary portable tape machine of which over 1,000,000 were sold. Two years later he revolutionised the old reel-to-reel tape system by inventing the magnetic tape . ‘I got annoyed with the clunky, user-unfriendly reel to reel system, it’s that simple’, Ottens said later. The new carrier had to be sufficiently small to suit into his jacket pocket, Ottens decided, and he had a wooden model made to work out the perfect size. In 1963 the primary plastic encased magnetic tape was presented at an electronics fair carrying the slogan ‘smaller than a pack of cigarettes!’ The tapes were quickly copied by the japanese but in several formats. Ottens managed to form a affect Sony to use the mechanism patented by Philips to introduce a typical cassette which was then unrolled globally. Over 100 billion were sold worldwide. Ottens went on to develop the CD, which again became a Sony-Philips standard and which sold over 200 billion. In 1986 Ottens retired but he was often asked if he was pleased with his inventions, which allowed millions to possess access to music. ‘I haven’t any ‘pride dial’’ Ottens said in an interview, stressing that both inventions were team efforts. His biggest regret was that that Sony, not Philips, invented what he considered to be the perfect application for the magnetic tape , the Walkman. ‘That still hurts,’ he said. Dubious about the recent revival of the magnetic tape Ottens said ‘nothing could beat the sound of a CD.’