ok either this will elicit uniform confusion, or there's going to be like 15 people going GOD SAME immediately:
y'all know what i miss? like, a lot, actually?
hamfests.
as in amateur radio, not pork products
i'm the black sheep of my family in that i am the only one without a ham radio license (A TERRIBLE MARK OF GREAT SHAME, AS I AM SURE YOU'D AGREE). my mom and dad still have some old printed postcards with their handles on them that they'd send to people around the world after chatting, their car license plates for a long time were their ham numbers, etc.
but mostly
hamfests were such great general tech swapmeets
like imagine a big communal garage sale where the parking lot was half "for 20 bucks more, you get a spot here and you can open up the back of your car and sell old tech bits", in an environment where everybody knows at least a baseline about that technology so you can get in to the real interesting shit
plus usually a section for indoor vendors who actually set up proper booths and such
a LOT of old computery doodads swapped and bartered and sold all around
