September 1977, a friend brought this new game to our group. First Edition LBB 1-3. We all went nuts and within a week, I had my own set of books, alas now long gone.
I still play around with my ATU and have even adapted it to fit into the OTU. We played for YEARS without the OTU...
Later I joined the Navy and met another group that wanted to play Traveller, that was 1981-1983. We played in the Spinward Marches, fighting those nasty mind-freaks and trying to build a financial empire in Lunion Sub-Sector. One of my players even became the Count of Lunion (through marriage and one tiny assassination...). We played through the Fifth Frontier War, but scattered shortly after that and after that it was Mental Traveller.
HOWEVER, a couple of months ago, my two sons (21 and 17) helped me with the Mongoose Playtest and now we are starting an adventure in the Spinward Marches in 1248. We keep on Travelling.
AND, I still muck around with my ATU. I am currently redoing the UWPs into MGT format (adding Temperature for example) using the Hard Science Rules (which I pretty much used anyway). Maybe some day I will print it (probably not). The Pleiades Cluster Campaign still lives!