Yeah, spillage...what's the good word?
Update on the 74HC14 mod: finally got me a multimeter (RatShack catalog #22-812 (online, in stores it's #220-0812)), and I think I have found the three points needed to solder wires to the chip (rather than wiring from the encoder chip directly to the 74HC14), based on a dead v1.0 board I have. All three points are on the underside of the board. As soon as I get a digital camera from KingViper, and as soon as I get a working mock-up running on my working v1.0 board, I'll be able to verify if those points are the needed ones, and then it's just a matter of getting a modchip (damn Matrix only having 256KB of BIOS space). I should also have a v1.5 mobo/hdd/psu in a week or so, so work on the Focus chip will commence.