Joseph F. Ossanna (December 10 1928 - November 28 1977),
received his BSEE from Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, in 1952. He was since a member of the Technical Staff of the Bell Labs, Murray Hill, New Jersey, New Jersey. He was actively engaged in the software design of Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service), a general purpose programming system used at Bell. He also authored the first version of
Troff for
Unix. He died of a massive heart attack while in hospital recovering from a first heart attack.