Snipped! I know stupid green with grey/black traces very well, they're really a bitch to handle and they're very poor when it get wet causes corrosion in few days rendering some types useless especially those that are one-sheet multi-layer designs. These are typical semiclear poly sheet that has grey conductive (like a ink) traces and pads silkscreened right on there. Sometimes denpending on design requirements uses folded sheet with a insulating sheet with holes at right locations to keep switch contacts apart at specific distrance by that thickness of this poly sheet. As in PS/1 keyboards. In other keyboards, usually uses one sheet with layers of conductive ink printed on then insulating green silkscreened on it to permit another layer of conductive ink and final insulating printed on, sometimes some designs uses itself as contacts or use carbon ink just for the contacts itself. Max!!, Don't - (snip!) oh no, too late! After all those blue streak cursing settled, be prepared to curse again, butched that one really good. You can't make it longer again for ever. And this keyboard is unit replacement and usually costs more than what this laptop is worth direct from compaq. Yes, still can get parts for most older notebooks. Other sources, you can ask and surf on that newsgroups and websites until you find a used keyboard or another broken notebook. These cracks in that grey traces CAN BE repaired with a conductive pen. I use mine product called "Circuit Works" for this. I kept my LTE 386s/20 keyboard alive on that narrower one of two set cables for years and the repaired sections is still flexiable. My method: clean real good and insure that traces is not insulated by another sticky tape. Glop some conductive ink on in a way that is easily clear any shorts, let dry for few hours. Scrape to make new traces as originally designed. Need to keep that black part because this is better material for making connections in that locking connectors. That why you snipped that off and that is far too short. I did once but I only merely very tiny trimmed it if asolutely must. For anything else, I merely dab on with a wetted end of blunt slim objects. Oh, you can't solder because of that poly sheets. TIP: unscrew that applicator off that pen after shaking that pen until that steel ball rattles and stick the tool of your choice in there to get some load of that grey stuff instead of it's built in applicator. It dries real fast so you have to transfer that conductive ink direct from that pen to the work. Too different between 2 due to pin pitches. :-( tapewire and that printed on sheets. But thanks for this tip, I was wondering where to find them as I sometimes need them to make new cables or create new adapters ie: LTE 286 to replace the clobbered 3.5" hd for a 2.5" hd ide. Oh you jumped in there first so that is fine with me. :) Jason D. Jason D. jpero(a)pop.cgocable.net