Formatting, spelling, and text production utilities

Core directive inventory

The following table groups the complete built-in registrations rather than repeating matching end delimiters as separate features. “ZL” and “CL” in the Genera row describe the same engine under its two syntax modes.

System 46's ~G means “go to argument,” while ~X means spaces. System 303 is transitional: ~X is hexadecimal and ~@* is the general absolute movement operation, but ~G still performs a jump when its first parameter is an integer from zero through three; otherwise it performs general floating-point formatting. Genera resolves the collision through the dynamic syntax mode: its ZL branch keeps old G/X, while its CL branch gives them the Common Lisp floating/hexadecimal meanings.

The System 303 FORMAT docstring advertises ~(...~) case conversion and a pair of non-ASCII indentation controls. The selected format.lisp does not register either handler. An older file retained in the Fossil checkout, format.lisp.208, does contain those registrations, but it is not the current component source. The fresh runtime probe below found all three functions in the loaded System 303-0 dispatch properties and exercised all four case-conversion variants. Thus the docstring describes the load band correctly while the current executable source body does not reconstruct that part of the loaded band. The indentation handler's presence is runtime-confirmed; its visible line-layout effect was not exercised.

Named and extensible directives

System 46 already parses a long directive name delimited by backslashes, even though its core file defines no named convenience family comparable to later releases. System 303's core named directives are:

• LOZENGED-CHAR and LOZENGED-CHARACTER, which show a character in the Lisp-machine lozenge notation;
• LOZENGED-STRING;
• TIME-INTERVAL, DATIME, TIME, and DATE.

Genera exposes DEFFORMAT as a definition type and supports ANSI-style ~/function/. The core file also registers these English helpers:

• HAS-HAVE, IS-ARE, and WAS-WERE;
• THIS-THESE, THAT-THOSE, IT-THEM, IT-THEY, and ITS-THEIR;
• PLURALIZE, A-OR-AN, and QUOTED-STRING.

Its character-style region uses source control characters corresponding to a Control-P opener and Control-Q closer. A parameter can be I, B, P, or R for italic, bold, bold-italic, or roman; it can instead be a face symbol or a full character-style value. The colon modifier also binds line height. This is rendering metadata carried by “fat” characters and output streams, not a vector-font facility.

Because DEFFORMAT and property registration are extension mechanisms, an application can add directives after the core loads. For example, the LM-3 Zmail tree registers an ARROW directive. The table above deliberately means “complete core language,” not “every directive any loadable application could have installed into a running world.”

FORMAT:OUTPUT in maintained LM-3

System 303 also contains a small output-composition language in io1/output.lisp, documented alongside FORMAT. Its complete public surface in the selected source/manual pair is:

FORMAT-MACRO is a compile-time optimizer for literal controls. When it cannot safely expand a control, it falls back to a normal FORMAT call; it is not a second formatting language.

System 303 option inventory

The complete accepted keyword surface of the maintained FQUERY is:

:SELECT is accepted but explicitly marked no longer used. :SIGNAL-CONDITION is accepted by the decoder but has no independent effect in the selected source. The public query.text manual describes the older core options and omits :DEFAULT-VALUE, :TIMEOUT, and the timeout wrappers; those features are established by source, not by that manual page.

Standard one-character choices add Hand-Up as yes and Hand-Down as no, alongside Y/T/Space and N/Rubout. The wrappers are Y-OR-N-P, YES-OR-NO-P, Y-OR-N-P-WITH-TIMEOUT, and YES-OR-NO-P-WITH-TIMEOUT.

Genera option inventory

Genera's complete keyword surface is:

Genera removes the maintained LM-3 timeout and default-value options. It adds Dynamic Windows integration: choices have a presentation type, can be clicked, and readline choices use completion suggestions. A stream can redirect the interaction through its :FQUERY-STREAM operation. The one-character defaults retain Y/T/Space and N/Rubout but not LM-3's hand gestures. YES-OR-NO-P requests line input with :NO-INPUT-SAVE T.

This is a clear case where “later” does not mean “strict superset.” Genera's interface is richer on a presentation-aware display but lacks the timeout API present in the maintained LM-3 line.

Complete special-layout registrations

System 303's GRIND-TOP-LEVEL adds a selectable layout function and initial indentation to the older optional argument list. It can inspect encapsulations, renamings, interpreted definitions, DEFSELECT, and arrays. The selected source also disables its custom array-contents branch after recording an infinite-loop problem, and states that the old grinder does not understand *PRINT-CIRCLE*. Genera supports compiled and interpreted functions, flavor methods, macro or special-form expanders, and encapsulation, but its literal registration table is narrower than maintained LM-3's: the DEFSELECT, FUNCTION, DEFSUBST, substitution, PROGV, and PROGW special layouts are absent.

ZWEI's Format Code command is related but hazardous to comments: it reads the form after point, grinds it back into the buffer, and deletes comments. The operation is undoable. Its old Control-Meta-G binding is commented out in all three inspected command tables, leaving it as a named command.

System 46: no shipped spell subsystem in the selected tree

An exact source search found no spelling or Ispell subsystem in the selected System 46 tree. This is a bounded negative result: it says the public snapshot does not contain the later facility, not that no MIT Lisp Machine site ever ran a spelling program.

Maintained LM-3: local Ispell behind two ZWEI commands

System 303 loads NEW-ISPELL as the ZWEI interface and defines the optional ISPELL system as the local checker in spell-check.lisp. The active command surface is small:

If the checker is not loaded, the interface offers to load the optional system, with a two-hour timeout whose default is yes. The local checker seeks a root in a hash-table dictionary after single wrong-letter, extra-letter, missing-letter, and adjacent-transposition permutations, returning at most ten variants. Dictionary flags are V, N, X, H, Y, G, J, D, T, R, Z, S, P, and M; they enable families such as adjectival, nominal, ordinal, adverbial, participial, past-tense, comparative, superlative, plural, possessive, and related endings.

For multiple suggestions, the ZWEI interface displays at most nine numbered choices, R for an explicitly typed replacement, and Space to accept the questioned word. The digit-range test in select-word can admit the digit equal to the candidate count, while the caller later rejects an index outside the list. That is a questionable source-visible edge, not a runtime-confirmed user bug.

The older ispell.lisp remains in the tree and talks to a Chaosnet ISPELL server. It is historical/dormant relative to NEW-ISPELL plus the current system declaration. A comment in spell-check.lisp still advertises a second Meta-Roman-1 route for region or buffer checking, but the selected command table binds only Meta-$; Correct Spelling remains a named command. This is another manual/comment-to-current-table disagreement.

The source-advertised programming interface is SPELL-WORD, SPELL-CHECK, WORD-OK-P, and WORD-IN-DICTIONARY-P, with ZWEI:SPELL-WORD linked to the local implementation.

Genera: full Zmacs dictionary workflow

Genera registers exactly fifteen literal commands in the standard ZWEI command table; only Spell This Word has a default key:

The separate CP Spelling table has one literal command, Create Spell Dictionary From Namespace. It scans user login and personal names in a chosen namespace, extracts alphabetic runs longer than one character, adds possessive forms, and writes the chosen dictionary pathname.

The Zmacs scanner treats letters and apostrophes as word characters and ignores one-character words. Spell This Word has explicit cases for point within, at the beginning of, at the end of, or in whitespace after a word. Paired single quotes receive special handling so TeX-like quoting does not become part of the spelling candidate. Suggested replacements preserve the original broad case kind and character style; an explicitly typed uppercase letter is respected.

The correction menu's complete semantic controls are:

• Prompt or Control-P: type an arbitrary replacement;
• Accept: when a temporary command dictionary exists, accept the word for the rest of that command; otherwise it behaves as accept once;
• Accept Once or Control-O: permit only the present occurrence;
• Control-A: choose the context-appropriate accept behavior;
• Accept Command: the explicit menu label used when a temporary dictionary exists;
• one item per writable menu dictionary: accept and add the word there;
• one item per suggested spelling: replace the word;
• Abort: cancel.

The source explicitly says keyboard selection for suggestion words and dictionary names was not implemented; only the individually installed keys above are keyboard-sensitive. That limit is not obvious from the manual's menu-oriented explanation.

The standard basic dictionary is SYS: DATA; BASIC.DICT.NEWEST. Site options can add dictionaries, and a personal SPELL.DICT in the home directory is tried in binary and then text form. Dictionaries load lazily on first spell operation, with a prompt when expected files are unavailable. Logout policy is :YES, :NO, or :ASK for saving modified dictionaries.

Command Processor tables

The literal Document Formatting table contains four commands:

The literal Documentation table contains six commands:

Dynamic Windows translators connect record groups and record-group names to Show Documentation, callable names and activities to Describe-style documentation gestures, and function-bearing records to Edit Definition. Active examples have run and edit translators. These are semantic object controls, not merely underlined text regions.

Zmacs formatting and documentation commands

The Sage UI installs these named Zmacs controls:

Source reveals an important restriction omitted from the basic command summaries in Help: Format Region and Format Buffer refuse a Sage-mode buffer, and Format File refuses a Sage-record file. They are for plain text or Scribe-command input. The error path directs a writer to Writer Tools parsing and Show Documentation instead. Thus “Sage-backed formatter” does not mean that these three convenience commands are the renderer for already parsed Sage record source.

Basic Sage markup inventory

The shipped Zmacs Help record calls the following its basic formatting palette. The classification shown here follows that record.

• Environments: +, -, B, Bar, BI, Box, C, Center, Checklist, Commentary, Description, Display, Enumerate, Equation, Example, F, Figure, FileExample, Float, FlushLeft, FlushRight, Format, FullPageFigure, FullPageTable, G, Group, Heading, I, InputExample, Itemize, K, Level, LS, M, MajorHeading, Multiple, OutputExample, P, Presentation, ProgramExample, Quotation, R, S, SimpleTable, SubHeading, SubSubHeading, T, Table, Text, Transparent, U, UN, UX, Verbatim, Verse, and W.
• Commands and markup: BlankPage, BlankSpace, Caption, Cite, CiteMark, Foot, Hinge, Index, IndexPrimary, IndexSecondary, Label, Message, Modify, NewPage, Note, PageFooting, PageHeading, PageRef, Ref, Set, SimpleTableSpecs, String, Style, SubSection, SubSubSection, TabClear, TabDivide, Tabs, TabSet, TabStops, Tab-To-Tab-Stop, Tag, TitleRef, Unnumbered, Use, and Value.
• No-argument punctuation commands: @# reserves an em-sized blank; @* forces a line; @. emits a period followed by one significant space; @= starts centered tab text; @> starts right-flush tab text; @\ advances to a tab stop or ends centered/right-flush text; @^ sets a tab at the current position; @@ emits a literal at-sign; and @~ discards following source whitespace.

The same Help record explicitly labels these names as present in code but not documented there: ActiveExample, Bibliography, Block, BlockLabel, CB, Case, Chapter, Define, Device, Disable, EquateFontFamily, Flg, HDX, Include, IndexEntry, IndFinalPage, Itag, L, LayeredErrorEnv, Lisp, MajorPart, Make, MargLabel, NewColumn, Noop, Page, Parm, ParmQuote, Part, Picture, Place, PlainHeadings, PlainHeadingNow, PlusStandardBoxMargins, TextForm, and UnindentParagraph. Box, Caption, and Message appear in both the basic listing and that “not documented” preface, an internal inconsistency preserved here rather than silently deduplicated into a stronger claim.

The names establish a shipped parser vocabulary, not the complete semantics of each book design. A book registration can select a design, and a loaded design can change how a structural name renders.

Filling, comments, and legacy text-justifier controls

The text-production subset of the standard ZWEI table is:

All three source lines also retain PDP-10 text-justifier compatibility commands: Meta-# and Control-X # insert or move Control-F font markers around a word or region, and Meta-_ / Control-X _ do the analogous underline markers. Their own documentation says they work only for the PDP-10 text justifier R. They should not be mistaken for native character-style formatting merely because they are still in the Genera command table.

For the general editor architecture and complete release-bounded keymaps, see From EINE to ZWEI and Zmacs.

Raw captures and screenshot disposition

Two 768 by 963 raw framebuffer captures retain the listener evidence under the ignored session tree. They are not published in docs/assets/: the exact results above carry the evidence, and a screenshot of the same listener text would add no distinct interface, layout, or interaction claim proportionate to publication. Other utilities on this page do have visible states, but they are separate optional or licensed subsystems and are not inferred from this probe.

The exact ordered guest input was n Return at each of the three date/time questions, the dispatch-property form and Return, then the case-conversion form and Return. Screenshots were captured after each form. The CADR harness does not yet have the Genera harness's linked action ledger, so this article records the ordered sequence explicitly.

Portable run provenance

The run used display :91, XID 2097202, title LOCAL-CADR [running], and a 768 by 963 framebuffer from 2026-07-18 08:08:12 through 08:11:20 EDT. The base and fresh private disk began with SHA-256 bb16e46ad81decfe1efe691d36b6aa4ce3fd4ffb82474365de3520989d397cb5. The harness recorded the base as unchanged, and direct hashes of the private disk both after the listener forms and after shutdown still matched that value. The final run.json is 6,901 bytes with SHA-256 22bad007c33b4a88f8af9250ff14f93a5e782f17b167b3b1a84342fabcb4df41.

Public revisions at session start were l d1250f90044f09b6c92014a9aef65f9574e1bcbf8a7163004e53cc6dbed0f2d6, system 4df393c68d7f083ce42d5c377039d26043cc18a9031ace28258dc97f4137eb91, usim 330d8248ec2e12af071e287920e681600f75df9ffd854aada5f8a64c9adad64d, usite 8f717978b458b40adf1e238aaf177f5bc54ef46881268e03b787ba57b0d30a0e, and chaos db2953fde68d726a605d1d1699bab6c926ef252bd4991f692bae6ee5a634764e. The private system, usite, and chaos copies were made at those same revisions at 08:08:09 EDT and remained unchanged since copy. Their tree hashes were, respectively, 21f5215de973aa6ccbddb817f2d64edd95ee1014c3028a9b0711ea7c741b807e, adbb720339db225e6635977a869cf3f3d50b507e614b37a976f4a6548d212a81, and 34ab197641aae909e9a224edc307020fddec263e732207a74573d51dac0daa87.

usim_sha256_at_start and the separately recorded usim_sha256_at_exec both equal 707a77d23e28ea1c45ae0eb0145dc181fa7ba649b9defc30044d4f847ac2c5be. The private machine-artifact hashes were promh.mcr 2c667f99f014a7130a55b255d31df02588d9396beace78abfe9325269e4ff3e6, promh.sym e9e3dd6a541511dd9541ae96b99dae19cb185d8b79fa09959f21fa52224f233d, and ucadr.sym 9071decf16fa8f11d7970c4662db0d6e95600fe43ec86ac41c77b37dbd7caa2a. The screenshot sidecars do not contain the execution-time usim hash; that evidence is joined here from run.json.

Toolchain provenance used Guix commit 230aa373f315f247852ee07dff34146e9b480aec, manifest SHA-256 3adae999bbe420182f22adc2499fcc82449a46eaf580a362de9c0e718fa6b37d, and Python 3.11.14. Shutdown was clean: usim and Xvfb both exited zero, forced_stop is false, state_may_be_incomplete is false, and no session process remained.

Remaining runtime work

• TODO: load the optional local System 303 Ispell in a disposable Zmacs buffer and verify the suggestion menu, including the source-visible digit edge, without modifying a dictionary.
• TODO: in an isolated Genera session, format synthetic unlicensed text and capture only the minimal Format Region result and spelling-correction menu.
• TODO: enter Show Font or Font Editor using a system font without reproducing a font sheet, and verify the visible labels described here.
• TODO: exercise the System 303 indentation region against a synthetic multiline string on a cursor-position-aware stream.

Any selected image requires its own review under Publishing runtime screenshots for museum documentation, portable harness provenance, and a substantive evidentiary use. Raw captures must remain in the ignored session trees. A font specimen or extracted glyph sheet is not a runtime screenshot and remains governed by the separate font recovery/redistribution rules.

Public System 46 files

All paths are relative to the pinned mit-cadr-system-software source tree.

Public maintained LM-3 files

All paths are relative to the sys Fossil checkout at the pinned System 303 check-in.

Licensed Genera files

These are archive-relative logical paths under the purchased og2/sys.sct. They are local evidence only.

The ignored Help catalog contains 801 decoded files and 17,266 records, with 18,931,775 embedded byte-array bytes. Its catalog is 577,696 bytes, SHA-256 a089d1e64e65e06471ef5bb90533164242267c9f8eb1067062a41796998c1aed. The 9,817,347-byte inert Lisp-source Help inventory has SHA-256 8e59a784b805808e86b84be58fea8622f64fb3e79d7d0603ef64ce0ed1365190. Relevant decoded outputs were zmacs2.txt (39,036 bytes, b291133739281560c54cae6d9bfffd04b1c4532445dd8668c72fa5b14fab0990), zmacs21.txt (19,746 bytes, fbc439b0095d14e2c813a1689586599c599a963c1d02aa106cc88935baa3817d), and zmacs22.txt (28,223 bytes, 2bbeef2534bf596e20beea8aab6088a81122f517d37fcf9ca9a0eb9b1413ce6f). All remain under ignored build/help/genera/ and are not linked as publishable licensed documentation.