I just received January 2006 news letter from Hi-Tech.
It seems that they are doing quite well in adding support 
for Mac OS X and adding Eclipse based Hi-Tide IDE.
Still ICD2 support is the major issue that prevents
customers to use alternative OS like Linux/OS X/Solaris.
Therefore they are working on adding ICD2 support
(should include both programming and debugging)
beyond MPLAB and even beyond the Windows OS limitation.

Of course there is a price to pay. HiTech PICC is not
that cheap so it is not really meant for hobbyists.
It is still good that HiTech is taking care of the
niche market for alternative OS (I guess not many
companies are using non-Windows OS for PIC 
development).

There are some open source projects which are aiming
to bring ICD2 programming function to Linux. But I
guess it is difficult to add debugging function without
access to Microchip debugging protocol.

>From one of Olin's previous post it seems to me that
Olin is also working on a possible USB based ICD2 
replacement and he has access to Microchip ICD2
protocol under NDA. His post is attached below.
I think that will be a nice product.

Regards,
Xiaofan


On 12/18/05, Olin Lathrop <olin_piclist@embedinc.com> wrote:

> But I'm experimenting with that concept now anyway.  I'll get the first
> boards back next week and am working on the BOM and ordering parts for the
> first 3 prototypes right now.  This programmer (tentatively called the
> EasyUSB) will have full variable Vpp and Vdd plus decent PGC and PGD drive
> that can be shorted to ground or Vdd indefinitely without damage.  It will
> be completely powered from the USB, although I'm adding pads for external 5V
> and serial connection which will be useful at least for debugging.  It
> should be easy to get the serial working first, then dig into the USB part
> on both the PIC and the host.  That may take a few months.
...
> I'm also making the hardware capable of being a debugger.  Unfortunately
> that's the easy part.  Making it work in MPLAB as a debugger won't be
> trivial, and I'm not sure I'll do it.  For now I'm just making sure the
> hardware and firmware are capable and allow dealing with the host side MPLAB
> issues later.  If this ever gets done, it should be a very nice alternative
> to the ICD2 for probably around 1/4 to 1/3 the cost.
>


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