The Gamegizmo mods work fine with 32 pin Saturns and 64 pin Saturns.
They may work with Saturns that have a Sanyo CD board, I'm hoping to test the theory soon.
Yes, the dark parts are the wires in the ribbon cable.
Going by your description you have counted the correct cable and you have a 64 pin Saturn. If that is the case then you need to buy the mod from Gamegizmo.