>your devices are not really as 'off' as you think they are.

I suspect this is the situation a lot these days in anything that might have a
micro in it - it is easier to turn it off and on under software than have a
proper off/on switch to properly isolate the battery.

I have just bought a Panasonic radio with a digital tuner, and was most
surprised to find that the station tuning is kept in ram, if there are no
batteries in it and the mains is off for more than 5 minutes it loses its
station settings - are EPROM's that much more expensive???

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