Joe Ossanna
Encyclopedia
Joseph F. Ossanna was a Member of the Technical Staff of the Bell Telephone Laboratories
in Murray Hill, New Jersey
. He was actively engaged in the software design of Multics
(Multiplexed Information and Computing Service), a general purpose operating system
used at Bell.
(B.S.E.E.) from Wayne State University
in 1952.
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.
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.
When the team got a 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. So it was that in 1973 he authored the first version of troff
for Unix
entirely written in PDP-11
assembly language
. However, two years later, he re-wrote the code in the C programming language
. He had planned another rewrite which was supposed to improve its usability but this work was taken over by Brian Kernighan
.
Mr. Ossanna was a member of the Association for Computing Machinery, Sigma Xi, and Tau Beta Pi.
He died as a consequence of heart disease.
Bell Labs
Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...
in Murray Hill, New Jersey
Murray Hill, New Jersey
Murray Hill is an unincorporated area within portions of both Berkeley Heights and New Providence, located in Union County in northern New Jersey, United States....
. He was actively engaged in the software design of Multics
Multics
Multics was an influential early time-sharing operating system. The project was started in 1964 in Cambridge, Massachusetts...
(Multiplexed Information and Computing Service), a general purpose operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
used at Bell.
Education and career
Ossanna received his Bachelor of EngineeringBachelor of Engineering
The Bachelor of Engineering is an undergraduate academic degree awarded to a student after three to five years of studying engineering at universities in Armenia, Australia, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Denmark, Egypt, Finland , Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Jordan, Korea,...
(B.S.E.E.) from Wayne State University
Wayne State University
Wayne State University is a public research university located in Detroit, Michigan, United States, in the city's Midtown Cultural Center Historic District. Founded in 1868, WSU consists of 13 schools and colleges offering more than 400 major subject areas to over 32,000 graduate and...
in 1952.
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.
After learning how to program the PDP-7
PDP-7
The DEC PDP-7 is a minicomputer produced by Digital Equipment Corporation. Introduced in 1965, it was the first to use their Flip-Chip technology. With a cost of only $72,000 USD, it was cheap but powerful by the standards of the time. The PDP-7 was the third of Digital's 18-bit machines, with...
computer, Ken Thompson
Ken Thompson
Kenneth Lane Thompson , commonly referred to as ken in hacker circles, is an American pioneer of computer science...
, Dennis Ritchie
Dennis Ritchie
Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie , was an American computer scientist who "helped shape the digital era." He created the C programming language and, with long-time colleague Ken Thompson, the UNIX operating system...
, 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.
When the team got a Graphic Systems CAT phototypesetter
CAT (phototypesetter)
The GSI C/A/T is a phototypesetter developed by Graphic Systems in 1972. This phototypesetter, along with troff software for UNIX, revolutionized the typesetting and document printing industry...
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. So it was that in 1973 he authored the first version of troff
Troff
troff is a document processing system developed by AT&T for the Unix operating system.-History:troff can trace its origins back to a text formatting program called RUNOFF, written by Jerome H. Saltzer for MIT's CTSS operating system in the mid-1960s...
for Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
entirely written in PDP-11
PDP-11
The PDP-11 was a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by Digital Equipment Corporation from 1970 into the 1990s, one of a succession of products in the PDP series. The PDP-11 replaced the PDP-8 in many real-time applications, although both product lines lived in parallel for more than 10 years...
assembly language
Assembly language
An assembly language is a low-level programming language for computers, microprocessors, microcontrollers, and other programmable devices. It implements a symbolic representation of the machine codes and other constants needed to program a given CPU architecture...
. However, two years later, he re-wrote the code in the C programming language
C (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
. He had planned another rewrite which was supposed to improve its usability but this work was taken over by Brian Kernighan
Brian Kernighan
Brian Wilson Kernighan is a Canadian computer scientist who worked at Bell Labs alongside Unix creators Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie and contributed to the development of Unix. He is also coauthor of the AWK and AMPL programming languages. The 'K' of K&R C and the 'K' in AWK both stand for...
.
Mr. Ossanna was a member of the Association for Computing Machinery, Sigma Xi, and Tau Beta Pi.
He died as a consequence of heart disease.
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. 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