That's weird. I have several and repaired these for a while. I put 1.2V rechargeable nimh batteries in and they work great. When I was younger and these handhelds were still the hottest shit in town I had a whole bag of rechargeable batteries on me while traveling. Modern batteries hold their charge a lot better than they used to, so things only improved over the years. Might wanna check that again.
Looks feisty