I recall high speed turbo loaders on the 8 bit machines. C64 used the popular Nova Loader.

The ZX Spectrum used Alcatraz, Speedlock (which appeared through 5 different versions), Firebird Bleeploader (that mimicked block loading from the BBC Model B)…

Speedlock and Alcatraz loaders on the Sinclair Spectrum were particularly impressive as they not only featured loading at higher baud rates but also featured a decrypter which would decrypt the game code after loading which made hacking games for infinite lives somewhat challenging as you had to crack the decryption routines to make sense of the scrambled gobleygook before you could hack a particular game for infinite lives, etc.