A Philips engineer visited our chair end of the 90s and told the same about the size "the cassette could be handled with one hand, let's keep that". He also told us they designed their delicate test equipment so that it would fit on a 1st class seat but not 2nd, so when they had to sit next to it during the flight (much too sensitive stuff to check in), management had to book them 1st class flights to Japan. ;)