On Thu, 23 Feb 2012 09:25:50 -0500, Jack wrote:

On 2/23/2012 8:00 AM, Puckdropper wrote:
wrote in :

I have a battery powered volt meter that does ohms, volts and all that
rot. My BIL gave it to me around 1975 and it takes one AA battery,
maybe two. I never changed the battery, it has a white paper label
with no name on it. Still works perfectly. I thought both these
items, my calc and this thing were some sort of freaky thing, but
seems there was a lot of this going around in the 70's. I don't think
this happens any more, am I wrong?

The only thing you've got to keep an eye on is leaking batteries. An
analog meter doesn't need the battery to measure anything but
resistance, so naturally it'll last forever.

I always thought batteries had a short shelf life whether used or not.
Guess I was wrong. Another thing that lasted around 10 years or more
was one of those little kids book that played a song when you opened it.
This was the itsy bitsy spider book, and it was sitting in a bookcase
for many years and when I opened the thing, it still worked. I'd guess
10 years at least.
The little silver oxide button batteries have an incredible shelf
life. The alkaline ones not so good, and the lithium somewhere in
between.