A fuel gauge! I don't think I've ever owned a bike with a fuel gauge. Our current cars barely have functional fuel gauges.
(Many) years ago I had a couple of Suzuki smokers where the tank had a piece of clear plastic tubing fitted between the top and bottom so you could see the fuel level at a glance. That got calibrated in gallons with a felt tip marker and the whole thing was very simple and worked very well. A few of my more recent aftermarket plastic tanks are partly see-through so you can felt tip mark those in gallons as well.
Other than that the metal tanked bikes are calibrated by the slosh method - it sounds more "hollow" when there's less fuel in it. Not much use on a long trip where you're running it from full to empty in one go. Like you I have a couple of 2L plastic containers I take along for when the inevitable happens but a year or two back one of them leaked petrol into my sleeping bag.
Keith'd fuel bladder thing looks useful - presumably, being military, it's army surplus. One of my 2L fuel containers (the one that leaked!) is a Dutch army water bottle that I found as a one off in a surplus store.
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