You only needed the PHB for character creation, leveling up, and spells. Unless the party is all casters, you don't all need PHBs. Creating characters also only took 10 minutes. Leveling up...depending on your class, maybe 5 at most. Find your class, write stuff down, close the book. Picking spells was the roughest. But most DMs, in my experience at least, would make you roll for it so there was no analysis paralysis. Lending books between sessions was also quite common. "Bill needs the week to pick spells, so if anyone needs the book between now and next weekend, talk to Bill." Photocopying your class out of the book was also quite common. As was photocopying the equipment section. And the spell lists. And the attack matrix. Xerox machines, man. People were poor and wanted to play.