is use of battery to bias an idea yet ?

[petemoore]

  Using separate battery as reference voltage for base bias.
  I know, the long way around, just wondering what the waters might be like.
  EX: NPN Si, 1k on emitter, 10k on collector, 1.4v battery/1meg resistor between ground and base, separate from the 9v supply except through the 1meg/base and collector ?
  Feel free to correct or embellish, iow the base is tied to a reference voltage instead of setting up one with resistors.

[R.G.]

It works fine. The only issues are that you only have the one bias voltage available, which is good for opamps but very limiting with transistors, and of course that you have to use two batteries.

When vacuum tube radios were at the leading edge of the technology curve, they had three batteries. One was for heaters, one for the plate voltage, and one for biasing. Yep, you guessed those were the A, B, and C batteries. To this day we refer to the plate supply in a vacuum tube amp as "B+" and that's why.