Simple Browser Application

Dear Technowizards,

This question may be too naive, but I would love love to have it, since I am building a web application simulator. I want to write an application using HTML Forms to run locally on my laptop. I will open the page(s), put in/get some data, this needs to be received by a 'C' or a Java program and read-write it to a set of files. in the local directories or a database.

1. Is this possible without a http server? I dont want the HTTPServer. :-)
2. how do I communicate with the c/java routines?
3. A little example or a pointer to it would be lovely indeed.

Thanks a lot in advance.

I think Javascript can do all that for you. I've seen things about file manipulation in JS, but I can't remember where -- a quick Google ought to hook you up, though.