I usually played "Romulan" (heavy shielding), but never got into the software part of it. I played as "The Green Perdell." The secret to a successful attack was to enter the screen and fire while the other guy was regenerating the picture. The "Orion" ships were fast, and very good at this. I suspect there were a number of players who automated the keystrokes required.

I think the revolution in energy will be in distributed local power production. Some key elements in this will be cheap and durable solar cells (efficiency is lower on the list), and cost reductions in fuel cell technology. A fuel cell that can "burn" natural gas (which already has an extensive infrastructure) into electricity has potential for a lot of market niches. These are already being used in a number of places, but they're big and expensive.

While distributed power will never replace large power plants (imagine if an aluminum smelter had to provide its own electricity), it will take a lot of the load off.