These are not cheap machines! Looking around online, i found a lot of 4 Shima Seiki machines listed for $40k! If someone is interested getting into knitting, I would recommend starting with some cheap hand-crank machines from a brand like Sentro. You will learn a lot more, and there is a lot you can do with knit tubes. If absolutely don't want a tube, you can get a so-called panel machine. I think you can find one on Amazon or Etsy - i forget the listing i saw, but it was like $500(much less than a Shima Seiki).

Here are a couple useful sites to get started:

https://machineknitting.fandom.com/wiki/Machine_Knitting_Wik...

https://www.knittingparadise.com/forums/machine-knitting.20/