Ham radio in the first quarter of the 20th century, when people built their own transmitters and receivers, winding their own coils and making high voltage caps out of sheets of glass. Often the station was in a “shack” in the back yard, because the open cell battery fumes and the noise and ozone of the spark gap caused an eviction from the house.
Hams have continued this experimentation to the present day. The community was in danger of aging out, but recently there’s been a connection with the maker community via WiFi technology, digital tech and sdr.
Happily, hams are finally getting away from Windows and are embracing FOSS.
For example, it’s not too difficult to homebrew a tripod mounted uhf system and antenna which, when set down outside, will orient itself and track a given satellite (itself built by hams) and initiate communications through it. You can’t buy something like that commercially.
Just prior to that, when people literally built their own computer from a microprocessor, sram, and other miscellaneous chips and electronics. Sometimes from a kit. That was pretty personal.
Alternatively the later 80s when IBM PC clones flooded the market and DOS and Macintosh ownership started to really take off.
