Any question answered...

was there a company that did some weird thing with chainrings for cranks where the bolt diameter meant you could not get any smaller, like there was 2 chainrings in one, the inner chainring a smaller one attached to the outer chainring

It was a fairly common way to make a triple in the olden days, usually a 110mm PCD middle ring with tabs offset 36° from the main bolt holes to allow a 74mm PCD inner ring to attach

ETA; you can still get them https://southerndistributors.co.uk/product/triplizer-silver-110bcd/