ORIGINAL: mnemennth
The Graphical User Interface is a generic term for the configuration software for whatever Multirotor Flight Controller (also a generic term) you may be using; the USBasp is the little dongle itself.
In a nutshell, The USBasp is this: a generic USB> Serial Adapter connected to an Atmel microprocessor which is itself flashed with a bootstrap program which allows it to load a firmware file into itself, then send that firmware file out over the ribbon cable to another Atmel microprocessor so it can be flashed with updated Firmware (The ''OS'' and ''Application Software'' of the controller combined into one big bit of code) which addresses bug-fixes and adds new functionality. The USBasp is the most popular ''dongle'' for programming Atmel microprocessors; the SiLabs Programming Stick is a similar device for their products, but you can even program a plain-jane Arduino to do the same thing for either family.
This interface can ALSO act as a serial communications ''Bridge'' to the processor's non-volatile memory or NVRAM (A tiny bit of solid-state ''hard-drive'' storage where things like your configuration settings for the MFC or in the case of my 9XR transmitter, where my actual model profiles are stored); so that things can be modified in an application, then ''written'' to the NVRAM so that the whole new configuration replaces the existing one. As soon as you reboot, the new settings are there. The GUI makes it all pretty transparent once you get the USBasp talking to your computer; it's just a matter of ticking off settings then clicking ''Update'' to send that to the MFC.
Most of them can even be programmed in a live setting, so you can be working on the thing on your bench and bench-test while observing live data from the MFC. The whole thing is a LOT like using an OBDII scanner on your car, only the people who make this stuff don't have to contend with car manufacturers trying to hide everything you want to work with.
mnem
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Morning Mnem!
Many thanx for the lesson. You are pretty good at it!
I think what threw me was something as simple as the "initialism" MFC in that I'm used to seeing it as an FC.
A very good explanation!
I've been an instructor for 25 years now and in addition to guest lecturing at our local university I instruct at a local academy.
There are two type of instructors.
1) Those who "Lord over" their students and bask in the fact that they have knowledge the little stupid minions don't OR
2) An instructor who has the innate ability to understand what it's like to be a student and gets gratification from being able to take complex knowledge and break it down in such a way that a normal human can understand it.
I fall into the latter rather than the former.
You do a pretty good job yourself.
Finishing up the 2nd cup-o-Joe and rolling to the field.
I'll apologize up front for the onslaught of blather yet to come!!![:@]
b