I'm glad to hear it's working now.
Regarding your question about the USBasp: Some 10 pin USBasps (not all) have the serial lines connected to pins 4 (RX) and 6 (TX) on the ICSP cable to permit this functionality:
There is a custom USBasp firmware that allows the use of this functionality:
https://community.atmel.com/projects/usbasp-tty-usbasp-programmer-modified-serial-support-and-terminal-program
I've never tried it, but it would be nice.