You only need a cable with a small hardware provided by IC manufacturer to porgram your micro on your target board,the IC manufacturer give the software free to you and you can use it with no charge!

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

True ISP chips such as the 89C51Rx2 abd P89C66x does not require a special cable, just yout serial port.

Erik