Older pc and even older usb game pad

I recently obtained an older pc. It is about 5 years old and runs XP. I have an even older USB game pad (maybe 10years old). The pc will boot and run just fine and I know I will lose everything on it, I don’t care. I am a little confused as to whether this will work and process. 1) in everyone’s opinion, if I want to run old school games (nothing newer then maybe xbox)will an older pc with older hardware work? 2) will an old USB gamepad work? 3) what is the “lakka box” refered to in the set-up instructions? I want to have all roms on this pc. I can hookup an external hdd via USB that holds the roms, but I want to do that ONLY for moving them to the pc once the os is installed.