They probably wanted to sell ICD2's without competition. But now that half of Taiwan and Hong Kong, know how to clone it. It's time they Pony'd up. (Not Likely)
And you're right, info on the 18F debugger is hard to come by, but I'm finding little bit's and pieces here and there that are looking promissing.
One interesting point, is that chips like the 18F4550 and 18F4321 etc. in the 44 TQFP package have a dedicated debugger port on the pins that are normally "No Connection". This opens up RB7:6 and MCLR/VPP for normal use, while still having debugger functions. 18F452 doesn't have it.
Probably the best info I've found so far is from http://www.picbook.com
They have a program, QwikBug developed by students at Georgia Tech. That's a debugger for 18F452 and 18F4520 with full source code. They list several Microchip engineers as references, so it looks like they got Microchip to give out a little more info.
Unfortunately, they use the USART for coms to the PC instead of the ICSP port, but it sure is a good start. (well Commented)
Still searching though.
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