You only need a cable with a small hardware provided by IC manufacturer to porgram your micro on your target board,
No you don't if you use what I call real ISP devices such as the P89C51Rx1 and P89C66x.

The nearest IC that is similat to AT89C52 is AT89S52 ,atmel gives you a software and cable(25$) for programming it.

The above mentioned will do anything the AT89C51 will do and more.

Erik