The display is from an alarm clock and the IC that drove it was a complete alarm clock on a chip. I just want to use the display on its own with an 8051 driving it. I decoded it so I could use a lookup table, but in the end even to use a single segment I have a fundamental question.

Let's say you've got a board with two LED's on it but the LEDs have separate anodes and a common cathode. In order to control each LED separately you'll need to use the micro-controller to supply current to the correct anode. This is my first problem because I'm a beginner at this, I've only used the micro-controller ports to connect ground, not voltage to a device. Usually I have the voltage connected to the anode on an LED and then just have a port on the 8051 connect to ground and that's how I control it.

Then, assuming the above is possible and I can supply voltage to at least two pins via software, I already know how to connect the other pins to ground and can get it to work.

Eric's suggestion that I use a high side driver is probably a little over my head. But since he mentioned transistors I was also thinking that I could use a transistor as a relay to turn on voltage to each anode. Then I could use a port/pin on the micro to control the voltage to the correct anode via a transistor and use other ports to connect the correct cathode pin to ground. I've never used a transistor before except when plugging it into someone else's design, but maybe I could figure it out.