Mondo Knows Facts
Philips launched the compact cassette in 1963
The tiny tape format was designed for dictation rather than for music Philips showed the cassette at the 1963 Berlin radio exhibition, using eighth-inch tape at one and seven-eighths inches per second inside a sealed plastic shell. Rival makers took it up after Philips offered licences without a fee. Car players and home taping turned it into a music format. It sits in Mondo's music collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
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Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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More facts like this
The cassette was meant for dictationPhilips introduced it in 1963 as a compact, cheap recording mediumDolby B made cassette hiss bearableThe 1968 system raised quiet treble when recording and lowered it on playbackRCA's seven-inch single spun at 45 rpmThe 1949 format had a wide centre hole so automatic changers could grip itFlat discs beat cylindersEmile Berliner's gramophone made records cheap to press and stackEarly records turned at about 78 revolutions a minuteThe figure was never exact, and it varied between companiesThe long playing record arrived in 1948Columbia's microgroove LP turned at 33 and a third and held about 22 minutes a side
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Tags: cassette, philips, formats
Philips launched the compact cassette in 1963: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- The tiny tape format was designed for dictation rather than for music. The figure is taken from Encyclopaedia Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a music fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Music shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.