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A comment on Lou Ottens, inventor of cassette tape, has died. Parent comment

Re:Lou Ottens, inventor of cassette tape, has died by parsimo2010 on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @08:49AM (#26411147)
Philips decided on it because it would make the case closer in size to cassette tapes, and they already had a factory capable of producing it. I guess 12 cm would have required more retooling, which would cost them some of their advantage over Sony.

Source: https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/why-is-a-cd-74-minu...

"Philips engineer Kees A. Schouhamer Immink writes that Philips were pushing for the CD to be close in size to the cassette tape, whereas Sony were pushing for a slightly larger 12cm disc, partially because they knew that Philips already had a factory capable of producing 11.5cm CDs and if they could decide on 12cm as the industry standard then they would erase Philips' head start in manufacturing."

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Re:Lou Ottens, inventor of cassette tape, has died by marshmallow_12 on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @09:15AM (#26411414)
Interesting that the universal standard was created for such a petty reason. I was hoping to hear that there was some subtle but huge difference in 0.5cm. But no, it's just to screw Philips over, and we all have to play along.
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Re:Lou Ottens, inventor of cassette tape, has died by parsimo2010 on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @10:17AM (#26412080)
It’s not like Sony and Philips are friends. They’re competitors. And the reason Philips wanted 11.5 cm is because it gave them an advantage, aka just to screw Sony over. This is normal business, not some moral failing.
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Re:Lou Ottens, inventor of cassette tape, has died by rowanG077 on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @03:46PM (#26415977)
Actually it is a moral failing. All that equipment had to be end of lifed earlier and much more work had to be put in. More garbage, more wasted energy. I can't see how that is anything but a moral failing.
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Re:Lou Ottens, inventor of cassette tape, has died by rexpop on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @05:40PM (#26417410)
I agree, and am glad you recognize it as such. When Sony erased Philips' "head-start", they obsoleted an investment made with the finite endowment of global resources (not to mention time). It's an underhanded tactic which disadvantages everyone to advantage a few.
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Re:Lou Ottens, inventor of cassette tape, has died by aksss on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @01:58PM (#26414714)
I, for one, appreciate the additional 2MB of storage that gave us. /s
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Re:Lou Ottens, inventor of cassette tape, has died by TedDoesntTalk on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @03:51PM (#26416050)
I wonder how many more minutes of audio 0.5 cm gets us?
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Re:Lou Ottens, inventor of cassette tape, has died by selcuka on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @08:46PM (#26419142)
If you ignore the hole in the middle and approximate the number of minutes to be proportional to the area of a circle then it's ~6 minutes.
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Re:Lou Ottens, inventor of cassette tape, has died by stjohnswarts on Thursday March 11, 2021 @11:05AM (#26425472)
Philips engineers some good stuff, my last flat screen was 12 years old. The only reason I retired it was because instead of waiting for my friend to come over I decided to move it myself (it was pretty hefty). Lost my grip and boom no more flatscreen (to fix it was far more than it was worth with a cracked screen). I wonder if my TCL will last anywhere near as long, it still had a great picture and it didn't need a soundbar like my new much cheaper TCL :) .
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Re:Lou Ottens, inventor of cassette tape, has died by ChuckMcM on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @02:48PM (#26415317)
See also JVC's "VHS" vs Sony's "BetaMax". It is the way of standards warfare.

It definitely annoyed me that media cabinets that held an even number of cassette tape drawers "across" would not fit an integral number of CD drawers.

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Re:Lou Ottens, inventor of cassette tape, has died by rexpop on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @05:42PM (#26417422)
> It is the way of standards warfare.

Is it the way, or merely a way, and only the way so far in our brief history? I hate to see defeatism around gross inefficiencies like these.

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