compact cassette

Also known as CC, cassette tape, tape, musicassette, MC, music cassette, cassette, audio tape

magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback

AI overview

A compact cassette is a small plastic case containing magnetic tape that can record and play back audio, designed to be more portable and convenient than earlier tape formats. It became one of the most popular ways for people to listen to music and record sound from the 1970s through the 1990s.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Wikidata facts

Instance of: open standard
Image: Side A, TDK D-C60 20041220.jpg
Has parts of class: magnetic tape

Show 6 more facts

Commons category: Compact Cassette
discoverer or inventor: Lou Ottens
equivalent class: bibliograph.net/CompactCassette
different from: cassette tape
exact match: rs.tdwg.org/format/values/m057
Commons gallery: Compact Cassette

Sources (3)

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Encyclopedic overview

The cassette tape, officially named the Compact Cassette, and also known as audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Ottens and his team at the Dutch company Philips, the Compact Cassette was introduced in August 1963, and Philips freely licensed the patented format to other manufacturers from 1966.

Cassette tapes come in two forms, either containing content as a pre-recorded cassette (such as a Musicassette), or as a fully recordable "blank" cassette. Both forms have two sides and are reversible by the user. Although other tape cassette formats have also existed—for example the Microcassette—the generic term cassette tape is normally used to refer to the Compact Cassette because of its ubiquity.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “compact cassette” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.