Hi,
I want to test and play around with asterisk with my own computer and phone at home. What type of hardware is needed?
Thanks
More or less any current computer, will allow you to run quite a bit of the supplied demo configuration.
Other hardware depends on what you want to do.
You may want SIP phones. Alternatively you may want ATAs or an FXS type line card, to use analogue phones. The SIP phones can be soft phones on other computers (or even the same one, but that is more fiddly - I would advise starting with physical phones.
An ethernet interface is needed for IP telephony.
The most important hardware, is probably a hard copy of one of the DIgium books on Asterisk. That used to be Asterisk: The Future of Telephony, but I think there is a more recent one.
http://nerdvittles.com/index.php?p=144
My signature list my setup and resources: reading the book will greatly accelerate the process.