A DIP-20 FPGA Board!
While many still think of programmable hardware as the realm of the “true expert engineers”, in reality, they are becoming more and more accessible to the average hacker. The Lattice MachXO2 series of FPGAs is very friendly as it contains its own flash memory and oscillator, so the requirements to put one on a board are low. Plus, they come in packages that are actually solderable by the hobbyist. Even so, boards like this DIP-20 FPGA Breakout reduce the barrier to entry even further.
Not only does the board contain the FPGA and the few required components to get it working, but it also has the JTAG connector squeezed in at one end. Programming it shouldn’t be too difficult either. There’s a huge range of various JTAG probes that will work with open-source software like OpenOCD which supports all major FPGA vendors. Even FT2232 and similar chips can be turned into JTAG probes! You can either solder in the included headers or use a pogo pin breakout (like this one) to make programming fast and easy.
If you’ve ever wanted to get into programmable hardware there’s never been a better time to start. Open-source tools have made incredible leaps forward over the last few years, and now fully open-source toolchains exist for many vendors, Lattice especially! You can get started for well under $50 if you spend some time reading and searching for good deals, or you can pick up officially supported tools and be off to the races. In either case, there is a huge wealth of knowledge online, including many tutorials and resources for learning Verilog or VHDL and using toolchains to turn that code into a working device. So get hacking, and have fun!