Problem:

Despite having a fast internet connection, the downloads on my System 7 Mac remain slow (e.g. 60kb / sec). How do I get it up to full speed?

Solution:

The short answer is: There's no way. But realizing the problem stems from the framebuffer sharing the bus with the PDS and Cache slot, we set our Macintosh IIci running System 7.1 to the lowest possible resolution (640x480) and our colours from 256 to 1-bit black & white.

This freed up CPU time and bus bandwith for our download, resulting in a good 10% increase in download speed on a 68030 CPU Mac IIci.

So next time you're about to go for a big Quicktime movie or software image, try lowering settings in your monitors control panel first. It's not full speed, but every little bit helps, doesn't it?