Comment by bluGill
4 hours ago
Alkaline. Rayovac spent a lot of money making alkaline that wouldn't leak (after several years of research one guy's wife asked "why don't you encase them in steel" - turns out that works, or at least that is how I heard the story). They never has the capacity of the more expensive competitors, but for my camping stuff I'll take that trade off. (all too often the last trip of the year I'm throwing everything in a box in the rain, and then it gets stored until next season when I'll just put new batteries in if needed)
At our high school we each had to buy a TI-83 calculator kit, and it came with one of those Rayovac alkaline chargers.
I also had a Seitek Eco charger that could charge "normal" alkalines. But you had to be careful not to discharge them too deep. It seemed kind of pointless over rechargebles though the capacity of NiCD/NiMH was way lower back then (I remember when NiMH AA batteries at 700 mAh were considered really high!). And perhaps it some devices it was great they held 1.5 V.
I forgot about those, the rechargeable existed too, but their regular non-rechargable were the ones that didn't leak.