Happy 50th Birthday - the Phillips Compact Cassette

Very high geekdom. From The Register:

Happy 50th birthday, Compact Cassette: How it struck a chord for millions
On 30 August, 1963, a new bit of sound recording tech that was to change the lifestyle of millions was revealed at the Berlin Radio Show.

The adoption of the standard that followed led to a huge swath of related technological applications that had not been envisaged by its maker; for Philips, the unveiling of its new Compact Cassette tape and accompanying recorder was about enticing people to buy a fuss-free portable recording system.

Sonically, the Compact Cassette recorder was no hi-fi and, from the start, was never meant to be. Instead, the company had succeeded in putting together a format for recording, storing and playing back audio that immediately made sense - and delivered so many convenient improvements over existing systems that its success was assured.

Although the Compact Cassette tape (now just known as the cassette tape) was a new design for handling tape media, what Philips had produced was an innovative approach to existing technologies rather than an out-and-out invention. Having decided on the format specifications of tape width, track width and tape speed, the firm's engineers went about designing the circuitry and physical mechanisms that would deliver acceptable results for dictation, among other tasks, and eventually music playback akin to a decent portable radio.

Indeed, the emphasis was very much on portability, and Philips had no intention of trying to match the fidelity of reel-to-reel recorders that had marker-pen-thick track widths and fast tape speeds. If you needed superlative sound quality, then those tape machines were there and would continue to be for many decades more in pro audio circles.

It was a really fun ride -- the format was originally designed for voice recording and for office dictation; a replacement for the Dictaphone Dictabelt Dictation Machine. (more on Dictabelt technology here and here). The first recorder I ever purchased was made by Advent Corporation (their 201 (pdf)) which used a Wollensak transport mechanism and added their own electronics for wonderful fidelity. This was when I was in college in Boston -- 1973 or so. Still have it. I also owned a pair of Large Advent speakers -- no longer have these. Now, for me, everything comes out of the mixer into a Firewire port and into my 8-year old computer running an older version of Sonar. Happy as a clam and the computer is still running just fine -- stripped down Windows XP and zero connection to the Internet. Regardless of the operating system, if you just get rid of the extemporaneous crap and distractions, you will find that it just works...