128M RAM?
I think there's your problem.
I got a 256M and it's still not lightining fast (rules don't quite apply to me though because Apple's implementation of Java is somewhere in the poop class).

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iMac G4 OSX 10.3.9
RAM 256MB
LW 4.10.5 Basic
ADSL anything from 3 to 8Mbps/around 1024kbps

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