a bunch of ram chips on their way to mine, have to borrow the universities surface mount equipment sometime
Surface mount equipment? That's cheating!
So I take you there 2x 16MB replaced with 2x 32MB chips - man this is to complicated for me to try lol,
If only you could stack the chips some how or make a mod chip style way of doing this
You are correct, the originals were 2 x 128Mbit and were replaced by 2 x 256Mbit.
I did think about stacking them, but I don't think it would work. The original chips are seen by the CPU as a single grid of memory, with 32 bits, 12 rows, 9 columns, and 4 banks. Physically each chip is actually 16 bit, 12 row, 9 column and 4 banks; every 32-bit operation is divided between the two chips. The new chips just add a 13th address row, and that address line was already there anyways, just unused on the original chips.
I'm sure with enough thinking, it'd be possible to stack them, but it was just easier to replace them.
I don't know that stacking would be any easier anyways, these are TSOP-2 and the legs are pretty short, not to mention delicate and closely spaced. It'd be very easy to break one or leave a solder bridge or something.