"The output contains some typographical niceties, so we can reasonably say that the code does contain an implementation of a very limited and basic form of LaTe

"The output contains some typographical niceties, so we can reasonably say that the code does contain an implementation of a very limited and basic form of LaTeX" has to be on the more optimistic side of overstatements. It's roughly akin to "cat can actually display content quite similar to a <pre> block, so it contains a very limited and basic form of a web browser". It's not entirely wrong. But mostly because it left "wrong" behind long ago and is in a different country now.