Software areas and applications on the MIT CADR and LM-3

Conclusion

The CADR was not organized as a small operating system plus a separate application catalog. Its listener, editor, debugger, inspector, mail reader, file tools, network clients, window system, compiler, and hardware diagnostics were Lisp systems in one live environment. A useful catalog therefore has to include both named interactive programs and the substantial facilities on which those programs depended.

This census is complete at a deliberately stated grain for two preserved evidence sets:

• every one of the 55 unique non-commented top-level DEFSYSTEM names found in canonical files of the pinned maintained System 303 tree is accounted for;
• all 34 canonical .lisp files in that tree's demo/ directory are accounted for, separated into the 20 Lisp components actually named by HACKS and 14 extra source files which are not active HACKS components;
• the seven Program-column entries observed in the running System 303 System Menu are recorded without claiming that each target was launched;
• user-facing programs and major functional areas visible in the System 46 load inventory and public source tree are cross-checked separately.

“Complete” does not mean that every Lisp function, patch, device driver, source revision, data file, or personal experiment has been promoted to “application.” It also does not mean that everything in the maintained restoration tree was loaded in the exercised System 303 band, or that later LMI additions in that tree were written at MIT during System 303. Those boundaries are part of the catalog rather than exceptions hidden in a footnote.

Evidence sets and vocabulary

The two release markers are snapshot comparisons. “303-only” below means absent from the complete System 46 snapshot but present in the pinned maintained tree; it does not assert when the software was first written. Likewise, “46-only” means absent from this particular maintained checkout, not absent from all later Lisp Machine software.

The maintained tree includes files with dates and copyright notices later than the System 303 era, notably 1985–1986 tape and Site Data Editor material. It is a restoration and maintenance repository, not a frozen single-date distribution tape.

Area map

Runtime-observed core entry points

The running System 303 load band reached Lisp Listener 1; evaluating (+ 2 3) returned 5. Its System Menu visibly offered the following complete Programs column. The source in window/sysmen.lisp identifies each target.

The original catalog-session menu capture remains ignored. A later, independently provenanced System Menu study selected one exact menu state for the curated screenshot tree after capture-specific review. The original capture's filename, PNG and pixel hashes, input sequence, band identity, and shutdown status are retained in the harness observation table. The curated Zmacs screenshots provide the visual evidence for the separately exercised editor states.

The runtime menu is a high-confidence list of core entry points, but it is not the whole software catalog. Separately loadable systems add system keys and commands, and many services have no top-level window at all. The system-key machinery in window/basstr.lisp is therefore evidence for selectable programs, not a declaration that every source file is an application.

A fresh System-Help invocation in harness session software-catalog-20260718, generation 1, displayed exactly five current bindings:

This is RV-help evidence for registry visibility, not proof that each target was entered. It also demonstrates that the System Menu and System Help are different registries: Trace, Mail, and Emergency Break appeared in the live Programs column but did not appear in this System-Help list. Conversely, System Help exposed the Editing Lisp Listener even though it was not a Programs-column item. The local-only capture is 0003-system-help.png, PNG SHA-256 06253bde02161f986fccd80f084a60dbbb7174e60c92c91f2aacdeaec4938aa6 and pixel SHA-256 1344fd3d9e779aa2df89a6f255c444005a6883ed12ab72273339d904b77a7617. The session ran System 303-0 against public software check-in 4df393c68d7f083ce42d5c377039d26043cc18a9031ace28258dc97f4137eb91 with usim check-in 330d8248ec2e12af071e287920e681600f75df9ffd854aada5f8a64c9adad64d. Its base disk SHA-256 was bb16e46ad81decfe1efe691d36b6aa4ce3fd4ffb82474365de3520989d397cb5 and remained unchanged; shutdown was clean (forced_stop: false, usim exit 0). The image remains unembedded pending image-specific publication review.

The discrepancy is source-consistent. The Programs column is a static item list, whereas System Help walks the current TV:*SYSTEM-KEYS* registry, suppresses duplicate characters, and skips an atomic target whose flavor is not presently defined. Thus the Help display is a dynamic view of current registrations, not an alias for the Programs column. The five-entry observation alone does not establish whether omitted optional software was loadable, loaded, or broken.

Interactive applications and user environment

Programming, debugging, and performance tools

Files, disks, tapes, and release administration

Networking, terminals, mail, and services

Graphics, fonts, drawing, and printing

CADR hardware, microcode, and diagnostic software

The host-side usim emulator and the repository's Xvfb harness are preservation infrastructure, not applications inside the Lisp Machine, and are intentionally not counted here.

System 303 HACKS and demo-directory census

The HACKS declaration calls itself “Random use programs and demos.” It actively names HAKDEF plus 19 Lisp modules, then loads two compiled support objects, TVBGAR and WORMCH. Only a file which calls DEFDEMO necessarily contributes a menu entry; active system membership alone does not make a menu item.

The complete CADR HACKS dossier gives every active component, compiled support object, and extra canonical visual, sound, novelty, or infrastructure module its own source-grounded section and records the reviewed live QIX observation. The tables here retain the release census.

Complete maintained-tree named-system census

The following table accounts for all 55 unique non-commented top-level DEFSYSTEM names in canonical source files. The categories describe the declaration's role; they do not turn aggregates or libraries into applications, and they do not prove that every declaration file was loaded.

Three declaration relationships are especially useful for interpreting that list:

• OUTER-SYSTEM actively groups ZWEI, ZMAIL, CONVERSE, LOCAL-FILE, FILE-SERVER, and TAPE as standard interfaces loaded over the core system.
• OPTIONAL-SYSTEM actively groups FED, COLOR, PRESS, HACKS, and ISPELL.
• The main SYSTEM declaration directly includes core runtime systems but leaves ZWEI, FED, Color, Press, HACKS, Converse, and Ispell separate so they can be patched or loaded independently. A commented line is not an active component.

The non-commented external declarations AMORD and SPICE-PLOT point to implementation directories on an OZ host which are not in the preserved checkout.

Six additional site files register external system-definition paths without declaring the systems locally:

The commented candidates TIGER, KERMIT, WINDOW-MAKER, OBJECTLISP, MEDIUM-RESOLUTION-COLOR, GATEWAY, and LAMBDA-DIAG are historical leads, not present applications in this census. SITE-EDITOR and CADR are also commented out of particular aggregates, but each has an active declaration elsewhere and is therefore legitimately counted. The UNIX declaration is counted but marked incomplete because its named implementation files are absent.

System 46 source/load census versus maintained System 303

The System 46 snapshot lacks a central DEFSYSTEM inventory comparable to the maintained tree, so its strongest installation evidence is lmdoc/lispm.files. That load list accounts for the core Lisp runtime and structures; disk I/O, DLEDIT, Dribble, Grind, Trace and Step; XGP, Chaosnet, CHATST, EFTP, SUPDUP, Press, FORMAT, compiler, QFASL relocation; Color, FED, CADR console/debugger tools; Error Handler, TV window system, System Menu, screen editor, Peek and Inspector; QFILE, font utilities, meter, package declarations, and system-building support.

The rest of the public tree adds bounded source or artifact evidence for ZWEI and Dired, Paint, DPLT, Spacewar, MUNCH and other hacks, Lexiphage, PICT, GEB, Organ, and older measurement/trace tools. It does not justify claiming that every personal file under moon/ was installed in System 46.

Important snapshot differences include:

Completeness limits and open questions

• Load-band membership remains narrower than source-tree membership. The Listener, Zmacs, System Menu, Inspector, Peek, Emergency Break, and five System-Help bindings now have bounded runtime evidence in the museum's System 303 harness records; that evidence does not establish every declared subsystem.
• The System 46 snapshot is early and uneven. Generated tags and QFASLs sometimes name implementations whose source is missing; Zmacs is the clearest example.
• Maintained-tree chronology is layered. Later LMI files and restorations coexist with MIT material. The Fossil check-in is the reproducible software witness; it is not a claim of one authorship or date.
• External site registrations are not recovered programs. ARLO, ARLOX, Daedalus, nodes, RLL, YAPS, AMORD, and SPICE-PLOT need their external trees before their actual feature sets can be cataloged.
• Source-visible dependencies can still be absent. FREDKIN lacks ELP-ARRAY, PFOM lacks its default RISING SUN input, and hardware-bound programs require devices not supplied by usim.
• SUDS remains data-only here. Drawings and plot streams survive, and DPLT prints plot data, but this audit found no complete runnable SUDS drawing editor in either bounded software set.
• TODO: identify the precise contents/start procedure of System 46 LMDEMO QFASL and PICT QFASL without executing untrusted compiled code.
• TODO: exercise Trace, Editing Lisp Listener, Dired, BDired, FED, Converse, Spacewar, and Paint through the harness; extend ZMail runtime work only after loading its optional frame into a disposable band; publish only individually reviewed screenshots used as scholarly evidence.

Reproducing the census

The named-system count was obtained from non-commented top-level DEFSYSTEM forms in canonical .lisp and .system files, excluding numbered Fossil history files. The demo count similarly uses canonical demo/*.lisp paths. A compact reproduction from the root of a checkout is:

rg -i '^\(defsystem[[:space:]]+' l/sys \
  --glob '*.lisp' --glob '*.system' --glob '!*.lisp.[0-9]*'

find l/sys/demo -maxdepth 1 -type f -name '*.lisp' -print | sort

rg -a -n '^\(DEFDEMO|^\(defdemo' l/sys/demo/*.lisp

The count was then audited against component systems and module lists in sysdcl, the separate file/tape/Site Editor declarations, SET-SYSTEM-SOURCE-FILE registrations, System-key registration, window/frame flavors, top-level functions, and the complete System 46 filename/load inventory. A textual hit was treated as a lead until its declaring or consuming context established a role.

Sources

• MIT CADR System 46 public source at pinned Git commit 8e978d7d1704096a63edd4386a3b8326a2e584af, especially the LISPM.FILES load inventory, NZWEI, HACKS, and Spacewar.
• Maintained LM-3 System 303 Fossil check-in 4df393c68d7f083ce42d5c377039d26043cc18a9031ace28258dc97f4137eb91, especially sys/sysdcl.lisp, window/sysmen.lisp, window/basstr.lisp, file/fs.lisp, file2/system.lisp, tape/sysdef.lisp, and the demo/ source directory.
• Repository studies of ZWEI and Zmacs, on-line help recovery, visual assets, fonts, and runtime harness observations.

Last verified: 2026-07-18.