[Amstrad Chief Engineer] Bob Watkins and I flew off to Japan and had our usual trip around Akihabara before visiting Hawson in Taiwan. Bob referred to me as Hawk-eyes because he didn’t know how I managed to observe every single detail of something I’d spotted in Akihabara. In one of the stores selling up-market equipment used for professional recording, I noticed in the corner an industrial unit made by Sharp with a twin cassette deck for copying tapes.

Bingo! Something sparked off in my mind. On the plane from Tokyo to Taipei, Bob and I sketched up a tower system with a double cassette deck mechanism. One of the cassette mechanisms would be play-only, while the other would be the normal play-and-record type, the idea being that consumers could dub their own tapes.

When we arrived at Hawson’s factory the next day, they had diligently prepared a mock‑up sample of our tower system. They had enhanced the design of our TS40 and, frankly, it looked much better. I found out later that they’d used the services of a proper industrial designer, and it showed. I told them that we would be interested in going ahead on the basis that the bottom cassette section was modified to a twin cassette deck. Bob had drawn up something with a bit more detail overnight, which he handed to their designers, and within two days, they’d modified the mock‑up sample. It was a drop-dead killer product.

From my previous experiences with Morse and Pioneer, I was becoming a bit of a copyright lawyer. I called Willoughby from Taiwan to ask what kind of paperwork I’d need to ensure these people couldn’t rip me off. The problem was, Taiwanese law was a bit ropey and it would be very hard to enforce any judgement against them.

He telexed me with some details and I got a secretary at the hotel’s business centre to type up an agreement. They were so hungry for this business – their first venture into the electronics market – that they signed it immediately. The contract was based on English law, which gave us a little bit more security, but the reality of trying to enforce a judgement in Taiwan in those days was complicated to say the least.

The twin cassette version of the tower system, [the TS35], was launched in September 1981 and took off like a rocket. I think it’s fair to say that we set the template because in the years that followed, every single audio manufacturer in the world – including the Japanese and European giants – produced twin cassette audio units as staples. Our head start meant that we had a good eighteen-month to two-year run at it.

Our national newspaper advertising was being cranked up. I told Malcolm Miller to take the precaution of putting an asterisk beside the picture of the new [TS35] twin cassette tower system with its ‘tape to tape’ logo and at the bottom of the advert, in large, bold printing, we stated, ‘*It is illegal to copy copyrighted material. This machine should only be used to copy material you have generated yourself.’ If you picture a full page advert in the Daily Mirror, the warning was in bold black letters about a centimetre high.

This was a cheeky tactic. People would read it and think to themselves, ‘Hey, that’s a good idea! I can use this machine to copy my mate’s Abba cassette.’ That was the effect the warning had, yet there was I, keeping within the law, whiter than white, telling people that the product should not be used for that purpose. Is that called reverse psychology?

Through our Hong Kong office, we went on to develop the twin cassette concept on to portable radio cassettes – nobody had ever done that before either. It was a massive hit and once again became the industry standard.

It makes me laugh when I reflect on showing new products to someone like Currys’ buyer Ken Sladen. Initially, he greeted my twin cassette products with great enthusiasm, but as time went by and everyone jumped on the bandwagon, he would refer to ‘the Sanyo twin cassette’ or ‘the Sony twin cassette’ or ‘the Philips twin cassette’ as if they were commonplace products, as if twin cassette were some sort of natural progression rather than a brainchild of Amstrad.

This was typical of retailers – they have no loyalty whatsoever. Maybe I’m a bit old-fashioned, but they conveniently forgot who put them in the twin cassette business in the first place.