...upon which I solicit the wisdom of the clueful among my readership.
I have on the desk in front of me an Olympus D-500L digital camera. I bought it in about 1997, with a set of four Olympus-branded 1.2v (remember that, it will be significant later) NiMH AA batteries and an Olympus-branded NiMH battery charger. For the past nine years it's worked perfectly with successive sets of 1.2v NiMH batteries of progressively increasing capacity (the original Olympus batteries were 1300mAh, which got progressively replaced with 1600mAh, 1850mAh, 2100mAh, and now 2300mAh NiMH batteries). About a week ago, it very abruptly totally stopped powering up with NiMH batteries ... but still works perfectly with 1.5v alkaline or photo-lithium batteries.
Olympus has been unable to solve the problem, or suggest any cause, over the phone. "Your mission, should you choose to accept it": if anyone has any insights on this, here's your chance to reveal the might of your all-dominating consumer-electronics fu. Otherwise, the only recourse is to send the camera in to Olympus for diagnosis and repair.