Netscape had a feature called LiveConnect that allowed interaction between Java and JavaScript. See http://medialab.di.unipi.it/web/doc/JavaScriptGuide/livecon.... for some examples of how it worked. Even though AJAX wasn't available yet in 1998, I think you could have used LiveConnect to achieve the same thing. Java applets had the ability to make HTTP requests to the originating host (the host that served the applet to the browser).