Thanks for the suggestions everyone.  
I did try setting MOZILLA_HOME etc.
Results are perhaps interesting.

If I set MOZILLA_HOME=/usr/local/netscape-403b8 and run
$MOZILLA_HOME/netscape 

I cannot even get my home page up - it just sits there busy...

I I make /usr/local/netscape a symlink to netscape-403b8 and either
unset MOZILLA_HOME or set it to /usr/local/netscape (the default btw)
I can get my home page but it still crashes on the applet.

If I set CLASSPATH to (well just about anything...) I again can't even
get my home page up.

Looks like I'll have to try the FreeBSD version.

--sjg