Actual Lisp operating systems also don't look like an Emacs running on hardware. The MIT Lisp operating system had Zmacs, but it was one application among others and while Zmacs had modes (incl a Dired), the typical Lisp OS application was not an Zmacs mode. None of these were based on Zmacs: the Listener (the REPL), the process overview, the font editor, the inspector, the terminal, the chat program, the documentation reader, ... On a Symbolics there were basically two major other programs reusing parts of Zmacs in their UI: the mail client and the documentation editor.

Thus when people think that a Lisp OS looks, feels or works like an Emacs on the metal or that GNU Emacs looks like the typical Lisp operating systems from the 80s (from MIT, Symbolics, LMI, TI or Xerox), then this is actually not the case.

See this for an example how an 3d animator used a Symbolics Lisp Machine and parts of the graphics suite for it: https://youtu.be/8RSQ6gATnQU