Hmm, actually the first remote I had was to a Sears color TV... it was UHF. Had two buttons -- POWER/VOLUME and CHANNEL. When you hit POWER it toggled between three preset volume levels (which were determined by where you had the knob on the TV -- and whether the knob was in the ON position) and power off.

The CHANNEL button rotated through about 10 or so preset channels on the TV. Each preset button had separate tuning knobs in a hidden panel beside it -- you had to manually find each channel. Little plastic numbers slid into slots that were illuminated when that channel was active. Wanted more than 10 channels? Tough!

What was interesting was that each channel also had a touch-sensitive pad so you could randomly pick a channel when you were physically at the set. I recall it was quite the workhorse TV... kept on going for years and years.

I believe the first infrared remote I had was to a Zenith VHS VCR (also my first VCR) -- it was one of the first infrared ones out there. Didn't have a keypad on it, but you could power it on and off, go up and down channels, full transport controls, etc. The unit itself had a full keypad (one of the first digital random access tuners). Once again, it was quite a workhorse and kept on going for ages. But really REALLY slow!