Editing Joe Ossanna

{{Short description|American computer programmer (1928–1977)}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Joe Ossanna
| image              = 
| alt                = 
| caption            = 
| birth_name         = Joseph Frank Ossanna, Jr.
| birth_date         = December 10, 1928
| birth_place        = [[Detroit]], [[Michigan]]
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|1977|11|28|1928|12|10}}
| death_place        = [[Morristown, New Jersey|Morristown]], [[New Jersey]]
| nationality        = American
| other_names        = 
| known_for          = [[Multics]] and [[Unix]] operating systems and software applications at [[Bell Labs|Bell Telephone Laboratories]]
| occupation         = electrical engineer and computer programmer
| alma_mater         = [[Wayne State University]] (B.S.E.E., 1952)
}}
'''Joseph Frank Ossanna, Jr.''' (December 10, 1928 &ndash; November 28, 1977) was an American electrical engineer and computer programmer who worked as a member of the technical staff at the [[Bell Labs|Bell Telephone Laboratories]] in [[Murray Hill, New Jersey]]. He became actively engaged in the software design of [[Multics]] (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service), a general-purpose [[operating system]] used at Bell.<ref name="TORFFBIO">
{{cite web 
|url=https://troff.org/whoswho.html#ossanna 
|title=Who's who in the world of troff
}}
</ref>

== Education and career ==
Ossanna received his [[Bachelor of Engineering]] (B.S.E.E.) from [[Wayne State University]] in 1952.<ref name="TORFFBIO"/>

At Bell Telephone Labs, Ossanna was concerned with low-noise amplifier design, feedback amplifier design, satellite look-angle prediction, mobile radio fading theory, and statistical data processing. He was also concerned with the operation of the Murray Hill Computation Center and was actively engaged in the software design of Multics.<ref name="TORFFBIO"/>

After learning how to program the [[PDP-7]] computer, [[Ken Thompson]], [[Dennis Ritchie]], Joe Ossanna, and [[Rudd Canaday]] began to program the operating system that was designed earlier by Thompson (Unics, later named [[Unix]]). After writing the file system and a set of basic utilities, and assembler, a core of the Unix operating system was established.<ref name="UGU">[https://livinginternet.com/i/iw_unix_dev.htm "Unix History"]</ref><ref name="RITCHIE1984">Ritchie, Dennis M., [https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/hist.html "The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System"], AT&T Bell Laboratories Technical Journal 63 No. 6 Part 2, October 1984, pp. 1577-93.</ref> [[Doug McIlroy]] later wrote, "Ossanna, with the instincts of a motor pool sergeant, equipped our first lab and attracted the first outside users."<ref name="reader">{{cite tech report |first1=M. D. |last1=McIlroy |authorlink1=Doug McIlroy |year=1987 |url=https://cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/reader.pdf |title=A Research Unix reader: annotated excerpts from the Programmer's Manual, 1971–1986 |series=CSTR |number=139 |institution=Bell Labs}}</ref>

When the team got a [[CAT (phototypesetter)|Graphic Systems CAT phototypesetter]] for making camera-ready copy of professional articles for publication and patent applications, Ossanna wrote a version of ''[[nroff]]'' that would drive it. It was dubbed ''[[troff]]'', for ''typesetter roff''.<ref>J. F. Ossanna.  ''Nroff/Troff User's Manual''.  CSTR #54, Bell Labs, 1976. Revised by B. W. Kernighan, 1992.</ref><ref name="reader"/> So it was that in 1973 he authored the first version of [[troff]] for [[Unix]] entirely written in [[PDP-11]] [[assembly language]].<ref name="TORFFBIO"/> However, two years later, Ossanna re-wrote the code in the [[C (programming language)|C programming language]]. He had planned another rewrite which was supposed to improve its usability but this work was taken over by [[Brian Kernighan]].<ref name="strauss">{{cite web|title=Printing on Linux|url=https://www.antipope.org/charlie/old/linux/shopper/147.html}}</ref>

Ossanna was a member of the [[Association for Computing Machinery]], [[Sigma Xi]], and [[Tau Beta Pi]].<ref name="TORFFBIO"/>

== Later life and death ==
He died as a consequence of heart disease.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2006-04/msg00005.html|title = &#91;Groff&#93; Fw: How died Joe Ossanna?}}</ref>

== Selected publications ==
* Bogert, Bruce P.; Ossanna, Joseph F., "The heuristics of cepstrum analysis of a stationary complex echoed Gaussian signal in stationary Gaussian noise", ''IEEE Transactions on Information Theory'', v.12, issue 3, July 19, 1966, pp.&nbsp;373 – 380
* Ossanna, Joseph F.; Kernighan, Brian W., ''Troff user's manual'', UNIX Vol. II, W. B. Saunders Company, March 1990
* Kernighan, B W; Lesk, M E; Ossanna, J F, Jr., ''Document preparation'', in ''UNIX:3E system readings and applications. Volume I: UNIX:3E time-sharing system'', Prentice-Hall, Inc., December 1986
* Ossanna, Joseph F., "The current state of minicomputer software", AFIPS '72 (Spring): Proceedings of the May 16–18, 1972, spring joint computer conference, Publisher: ACM, May 1972
* Ossanna, Joseph F., "Identifying terminals in terminal-oriented systems", Proceedings of the ACM second symposium on Problems in the optimizations of data communications systems, Publisher: ACM, January 1971 		
* Ossanna, J. F.; Saltzer, J. H., "Technical and human engineering problems in connecting terminals to a time-sharing system", AFIPS '70 (Fall): Proceedings of the November 17–19, 1970, fall joint computer conference, Publisher: ACM, November 1970
* Ossanna, J. F.; Mikus, L. E.; Dunten, S. D., "Communications and input/output switching in a multiplex computing system", AFIPS '65 (Fall, part I): Proceedings of the November 30—December 1, 1965, fall joint computer conference, part I, Publisher: ACM, November 1965

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

{{Multics}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ossanna, Joe}}
[[Category:1928 births]]
[[Category:1977 deaths]]
[[Category:Unix people]]
[[Category:Troff]]
[[Category:Wayne State University alumni]]
[[Category:Multics people]]