A: 

The applet usually downloads the data from the server using the HTTP protocol, so there is nothing stopping you from using the same URL outside of the applet. The only questions is: What happens with the data? The browser can only download and save it to disk. If you want to process the data, you either need Java (and the applet) or, if the data is really simple, you can do some basic processing in JavaScript.

A third option is to process the data on the server and present it as HTML on a different URL.

Aaron Digulla
It doesn't have to use http (unless there is a firewall blocking the way).
Tom Hawtin - tackline
A: 

sorry for such a vauge question, I think what I really needed was a little education on java applets. Aaron told me what I need to know... Thanks all!

yew tree