[support] using dial up to check Drupal 7 speeds

[Roger]

I have been asked to check how long it takes our test sites to load 
pages on a low computers, circa 686 or thereabouts,  with dialup, ISDN 
and GPRS wireless and this made me curious as to whether Drupal is 
designed to provide rapid loading of pages as would HTML/css.
The pages I need to check are fairly basic menus, text, low resolution 
fairly small images only 1-2 per page largest would be around 300px x 
around 500ps high, this would be a low res jpg image to show a brochure.
I'm guessing that the templates assemble each page and send the html/css 
with images to the receiving computer.
 From here in I'm in the dark as to how it works and what to look for.
Can someone shed some light on what I need to be aware of and how I can 
check load speeds on a minimal computer with dialup, please
Thanks
Roger