Vernon wrote:
While I am fascinated by machining I have neither skill nor experience
as a machinist. Therefore, I will appreciate your help.

I am considering buying an Emco Compact 5 lathe with mill as a gift
for my son. I don't know what generation the machine is. However,
this is not a CNC capable machine.

Will we regret not finding a machine that has the CNC capability? Or
is this the appropriate place to start. My son is studying chemistry
and has an inventor's genius.

I recently bought the CNC version of this machine.
Same lathe, except it has the steppers in place of handwheels.
The milling attachment is the same, no CNC milling control.
This is a very fine precision lathe. It works best for brass, aluminum,
and plastic. It can be used for steel, but don't push it.
The milling setup is pretty light duty. Mine does not have a fine feed,
but yours may. If it was all I had for milling, I'd sell it ($500 on
ebay) and buy a Chinese minimill.
One good alternative I saw was divorcing the mill column from the lathe
and attaching it to it's own X-Y table.
But yes, if you can buy it right, it's a great starter lathe for a kid
of any age.

Be sure it comes with all the tooling, because each piece is expensive.
Typical factory tooling usually included:

3-jaw chuck
collet chuck for lathe
ER25 collet set
Indexer
tool-post, preferably quick-change (2 styles)
Milling table (slotted plated about 5"x6")
Milling clamps
Milling vise

I can send you pics of most of those if you need them.