Alas, Cassettes, We Hardly Knew Ye
I regret to inform you of the passing of the Compact Cassette. At the age of 45 (that's about 135 in technology years) the cassette finally succumbed to market forces. Cause of death, tragically, was the cassette's own offspring, the Compact Disc. In addition, digital downloading is suspected of foul play.
The Compact Cassette was developed by Philips and introduced in Europe in 1963 and in the U.S. in 1964. The cassette (cassette is a French word meaning 'little box') was originally designed as a dictation device, but technical improvements (such as Dolby B noise reduction) made the cassette suitable for music recording and playback. Partly because Philips gave out cassette licenses for free, and partly because of the Sony Walkman (the iPod of its day) the cassette became extremely popular and challenged the LP as the music carrier of choice. The ability to record custom mixes on cassettes was a huge plus, particularly because the LP was a playback-only medium. The zenith of cassette technology was perhaps Nakamichi's Dragon cassette deck that offered excellent (for its day) sound quality.
Then Philips introduced the Compact Disc (borrowing the term 'Compact' from the previous invention) and the days of the cassette were numbered, particularly when recordable CDs became available. As music cassettes faded away, the cassette lingered on in the form of audio books, sales dwindling.
Recently, in the New York offices of publisher Hachette (the same outfit that owns Sound & Vision), a 'funeral' was held to mourn the passing of this 'dear friend.' As reported by Andrew Adam Newman in The New York Times....
