Zmacs in Symbolics Genera

Evidence and rights boundary

The following local files came from the licensed Open Genera runtime and remain untracked. Evidence-only original prose and cryptographic identities are published here. Six sparse functional screen states have also passed a capture-specific fair-use review and are published in the curated Genera screenshot catalog; that review does not extend to the source tree, decoded Help, worlds, fonts, or other session output.

The local defsystem zwei declaration names 54 modules, and the highest evacuated Lisp revision is present for all 54. Together they total 2,405,992 bytes; the declaration-order manifest has SHA-256 d32d09305b38f8636d689cf89161a2e97fba254ea5890fd448bef3b984eed6eb. The declaration witness sys.sct/zwei/sysdcl.lisp.~3~ is 5,581 bytes with SHA-256 69a0dc2c0709cabcf1d3b14c35e745fbcb0b6414efc800057473c1d93545d0c3. Each manifest record is its UTF-8 archive-relative versioned pathname, one NUL byte, and the 32-byte binary file SHA-256; declaration-order records are concatenated without a terminator and hashed again. That is the static base-subsystem denominator used here. Conditional or compiled-only Fortran, C, Pascal, Joshua, Concordia, PostScript, and contributed Macsyma packages are not promoted to base-world-active modes without runtime evidence.

The locally extracted Document Examiner corpus contains 23 installed Zmacs chapters as well as file-attribute, environment, and release documentation. It was used to find intended behavior and terminology. No extracted Sage Binary text or source tree is tracked; the only tracked runtime pixels are the six reviewed functional captures cataloged below. The public Genera 8 Editing and Mail manual is cited where it establishes product-level behavior.

The public manual is labeled Genera 8, while the local world identifies as 8.5. Manual statements are therefore cross-checked against local source or runtime before they are stated as exact 8.5 behavior.

Zmacs and Zwei are different layers

Genera documentation says that Zwei is not itself the file editor: it is a text-manipulation and data-structure system used to construct editors. Zmacs is the editor for files. Dired, Zmail, and Converse are sibling domain editors built with Zwei. The Input Editor is a separate core facility, although local source also contains commands that integrate it with Zwei-aware behavior.

The code makes the layering concrete. A generic editor owns a command loop and dynamically bound editing state. A top-level editor is callable. Zmacs-specific editor objects add the named buffer set, buffer history, file-group data, completion state, tag tables, and the Zmacs command environment. The full top-level object composes those roles with screen windows and process state.

Text, buffer, and window objects

The implementation is not a single mutable character array. A line is a doubly-linked object with text, length, permanent buffer pointers, modification tick, owner, properties, and parser/token data. A buffer pointer identifies a line and character index and records how it should move when text is inserted. An interval is bounded by buffer pointers; a node adds hierarchy, modification state, and read/write locks; a top-level node adds change history and local variables.

A buffer adds saved point, mark, window start, mode list, sections, and typein style. A file buffer also records its pathname, read/save ticks, file metadata, and version string. A window references an interval but owns its own display sheet, start, point, mark, point stack, blinkers, redisplay state, and buffer history. This separation predicts independent panes over shared text; the two-window runtime observation below verifies the visible result in this world.

Effective command lookup

The active keymap is a chain:

1. a major/minor-mode table, when present;
2. the Zmacs application table;
3. the standard Zwei table.

Control-X follows an analogous Zmacs-prefix-to-standard-prefix chain. Entries can be direct commands, aliases, prefixes, dynamic menu commands, explicitly undefined cells, or inherited cells. Named commands have parallel alists, and users, patches, site files, and loaded systems can modify the result.

This is why the companion reference counts configured entries rather than claiming a universal runtime-active number. The inspected source contains 212 literal entries in the standard direct table, 40 in the standard Control-X table, 13 direct Zmacs overrides, and 22 Zmacs Control-X entries, plus the installed prefix and right-button menu. It also lists 140 standard and 137 Zmacs-specific named-command candidates, counting the two separately supplied CP candidates. The constructor can warn and omit a command that is undefined at load time. Inheritance, ranges, shadows, optional packages, and those omissions prevent the source counts from being added into a meaningful “number of available keys.” The complete ordered candidate arrays are recorded separately in ignored local evidence; the publishable named-command audit retains their counts, categories, checksums, and reproducibility boundary.

Feature inventory

Modes in the inspected 8.5 source

The general and language/text modules define these user-facing modes:

DEFMODE is a higher-level mode constructor used by several language/text modes; DEFMAJOR and DEFMINOR cover other configurations. A mode can change syntax and hooks without installing a key, so this inventory comes from mode definitions rather than only key-table forms.

Patch Comment Editor and Standalone Editor Frame are initialized special editing contexts rather than mode declarations. Each installs a local Abort Standalone Abort overlay and is therefore documented in the binding companion, but neither is added to the mode count.

An apparent literal Common Lisp minor-mode definition is inside a block comment. Lisp-syntax registration can define syntax minor modes dynamically, but this audit did not dump the live registry. “Common Lisp minor mode is active in the base world” is therefore not asserted.

Source findings not evident from a feature list

• A source comment says the comment-editing bindings were a nuisance outside Zmacs. They are therefore absent/commented in the standard Zwei table and installed by the Zmacs overlay. The layering reflects an explicit usability decision.
• M-. runs “Edit Definition And Other Definitions,” not only a single jump. Its possibility mechanism accounts for multiple definitions.
• Standard C-Q is Various Quantities, not the older quoted-insert binding. The richer keyboard and input facilities changed a familiar Emacs-derived key.
• Several ordinary mouse-left/middle entries in the static standard table are commented, while live Zmacs still supplies dynamic bottom-line mouse documentation and contextual menus. Static table parsing alone misses the presentation system's contribution.
• Complete and C-? operate on definition names in the standard table, while Help retains the documentation dispatcher. This split is more specific than saying simply that “Zmacs has help and completion.”
• The Zmacs source installs Execute CP Command and Edit CP Command in a second named-command update after the main command alist. A parser that only reads the first constructor undercounts the command environment.
• Single-line and multi-line prompt tables differ intentionally. Ordinary Return terminates single-line input; it remains insertable in multi-line search input, which exits through C-Return/End or its search-specific Altmode/End leaves.
• Extended-search input is a hierarchy of sparse tables, not one monolithic keymap. Its operator prefix, string-search overlay, and single-/multi-line minibuffers inherit different parents; the complete chain is recorded in the binding reference.
• Keyboard Macro Mover points a one-cell sparse table at the caller's active command table and injects an internal BLIPS:a/ sentinel to terminate replay. That implementation detail is invisible in an ordinary keyboard summary.
• Word Abbrev mode writes its three Control-X leaves into the shared standard prefix rather than a mode-local prefix. The static mutation is established; its live cross-buffer scope remains a runtime TODO.
• Bolio's documentation and mode description promise Control-Meta font keys, but the implementing mode form is block-commented in this revision. Scribe is defined while :MSS is mapped to Text and described in source as not really existing yet. These are shipped-source contradictions, not features inferred from a manual.
• The inspected Macsyma source configures //* ... *// comments and Indent Nested on Tab, while the public manual says /* ... */ and Indent Relative. Which definition is active in the world remains a runtime TODO.

Runtime observations in Genera 8.5

A fresh isolated session named zmacs-research, generation 1, used base world Genera-8-5.vlod (54,804,480 bytes; SHA-256 a8ee5e86cc7e322f7385af3e0cd579d7650d4dcfc3ce328acbf8b25515dd0672) and VLM executable SHA-256 9f5e18d5770f973879716182b6856ef5a8ee9d3b2bb907476ea0cf35986aa4c7. The full run boundary was:

The VLM ran in separate user, mount, network, PID, IPC, and hostname namespaces. The session had no external route or guest-visible host file service, and the Xvfb server did not advertise MIT-SHM. Both byte-exact X request substitutions and the one local RFC 868 request/reply were observed and validated; the time responder exited zero.

Bubblewrap exposed a read-only Guix store, generated hosts and nsswitch files, the exact read-only helper scripts and private X socket, and the writable private runtime. It hid the host root, home, repository, private session metadata, and unrelated runtime sockets. This is a native-process reach reduction, not a claim of a complete kernel security boundary.

The ordered input intents were: Select E; pointer movement and a held/released right button; insertion of the probe text; host Help, F11, and F12 mapping probes; Help command/list paths and aborts; Meta-X translation probes; Control-X 3; Control-X Control-B; pointer movement and a generic right-button menu while List Buffers was visible; Control-X 1; Help Apropos with empty input; Help command description for List Commands; and a final Meta-X keysym probe. The generation-scoped log preserves all 37 intents and their 37 linked outcomes, including attempts that produced no claimed guest effect.

The following states were directly observed.

Sources

• Symbolics, Editing and Mail, Genera 8, Zmacs and Zwei overview plus editing-command chapters; verified 2026-07-18.
• Symbolics, Genera 8.0 Reference Cards, used only as an 8.0 cross-check, not proof of exact 8.5 bindings; verified 2026-07-18.
• Licensed local Genera 8.5 source and extracted Document Examiner help, identities recorded above; inspected 2026-07-18.
• Fresh zmacs-research Genera Xvfb session, generation 1, input and image evidence recorded above; observed 2026-07-18.