Two options:
1. Buy an new computer.
2. Roll the dice and hope that your computer and ALL of its hardware is compatible with “crappy” win 8. And if it is, then be prepared to fork out $120 per computer.
And by the way, your old programs may not natively run under win 8. So, you'll have to set up a Virtual XP PC which may or may not work reliably.
I also have a Mac that runs Windows 8 on a Parallel Desk Top.
Everything I need to work with is on both. When the XP computer goes TU I’ll chunk it and start working on the other one.
If your computer will run XP, it will run Windows 7 with no problem. No need to buy a new computer.