Elric (and Moonglum)! I vaguely remember buying this, but being slightly disappointed with no Elric content.
My memory could be letting me down at this point...

I started in 1982 with AD&D. I was already reading Lovecraft so was very excited when Call of Cthulhu came out and that was my first non D&D game.

It's a very neat solution. In the first game I ever played, the DM used C90 cassette cases on their edges as walls. It worked ok, but was soon replaced by floortiles.

The map was tricky, but our GM figured it out somehow. Also, thank you for ignoring my slip to 'S' when I should have typed 'A'.

That would be a nasty slip. You expect to be in a slave pit, under a city, and instead find yourself in a horror filled tomb... :)

Played through the series when they came out. S1 is top class, but I felt like S2-4 weren't at the same level.

I played quite a few of those games, but they were minority interest games even then. Fantasy is the dominant (in terms of sales) RPG form.