I have a hand held lab computer (manufactured &
purchased in
1990) which takes quite an unusual battery.
The battery is the size of a regular "AA", but is 2.5V
Lithium. The company who used to manufacture them (SAFT) no
longer does so. The SAFT battery model # is "LCP 6".
Picture of battery (and a regular "AA" for comparison):
http://home.san.rr.com/instep/saft-lcp6.jpg (~42KB)
It might not make a perfect solution, but you could take 2 nicad cells
(1.25V each) of similar diameter and a shorter length (N size?) and
place them in series in shrink tubing to make a replacement cell.
Also check out the oddball batteries available for photo equipment.
There's a lot of odd voltages in that category, though you might have to
slightly modify the cell holder (widen it a bit).