I've been rediscovering "old" tech. Not necessarily because DDR prices are through the roof, but because some things were genuinely well built in the not-too-distant past.

And sure, I did enjoy servicing a 1980s VT320 serial terminal that I got for free, but I've also been examining what an original Raspberry Pi 1 is capable of doing. Did you know the RPi has hardware H.264 encoding capabilities? And mpeg2 hardware decode? With these things being fairly available -- just ask some tech friends if they have some to spare -- it's not inconceivably to make a TV frontend to access Jellyfin, in lieu of a Google TV stick or whatever.

Likewise, some pursuits avoid new hardware outright: a FreeBSD-based router runs really well on older hardware, because the drivers will have been tested and rock solid by now. And Asterisk as a PBX software is great if you want to get into telephony. If modern packet switching is more your thing, dn42 is one such environment that you can plug into and pass traffic with other networks.

And if you don't have PC hardware laying around, maybe try smaller: microcontrollers and embedded/IoT hardware is still fairly affordable, and has a breadth of applications, from home automation to just building things for the lolz. MeshCore and Meshtastic are comms networks built from low cost radios.

Just because some hardware became expensive does not mean the entire hardware space is out of reach, and in any case, the software domain is wide open. In that regard, Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is timeless. This is akin to trying your hand at Software Defined Radio (SDR) before taking the plunge by buying an expensive ham radio.

The tech field is not limited to just Apple and Samsung. There's also Dell, and Tektronix, and Linux, and Texas Instruments, and Arduino, and soldering, and KiCAD, and FlipperZero, and HomeAutomation, and IPv6, and more. Find your thing in this great big field!