Cruelty Squad and its weird parallels to the 1980s computer market (with pictures!)
yes, weird post I know, but I've been thinking about this a lot...... though I don't think this has any meaning or was even intentional. I think I just want to correlate my special interest to one of my favorite games.
first off, the font. Not an exact match, but the serif font used in the dialogue and various other places is very similar to Apple Garamond Light, though the in-game font is a little more horizontally squashed. I do like to think this was on purpose, because a lot of pre-90s advertisements ,especially pre-90s, used garamond and serif fonts in general. Just look at any old magazine ad and you'll see what I'm talking about.
second, I'll mention the Office level. This is probably the weakest link out of the 3 things, but I'm including it anyways. It feels a bit like IBM to me. The computers you see in the office could be almost any upright computer made after the IBM 5150, but It looks a bit like the IBM PS/2 model 80. great computer, by the way. Corporate Arch Demoness Elsa Holmes' first 3 names abbreviates to "CAD", and the most popular CAD software (AutoCAD) was released in 81 for the IBM PC. Extra stretch, but still. plus, you know, it's a tech-based or computer something company in game, so I might as well make this connection.
Finally, my pride and joy... Advanced Orbital Instruments. This also is my strongest connection. By name alone you can connect it to Texas Instruments (which yes, was in the computer market in the 80s. just look at the TI-99 or the TI PC if you don't believe me for some reason) but I have a little more connections than that. TI, ever since they were even created, has been involved in aerospace tech. They even provided important semiconductors for the Apollo Mission. In the NPC dialogue, they mention making Nuclear Warheads as well... which is another tie, as TI makes defense and military products, which include missiles. In my heart I think that Consumer Softproducts made an in-universe TI specifically for me.... I love TI!