So much so that I remember studying them in depth when I was in school as a professor was particularly enamored of it as a work of smart engineering.
Brought back some memories seeing this on the Verge today.
The buttons on Zenith’s original ‘clicker’ TV remote were a mechanical marvel - The Verge
Zenith TV’s were the s****. I had a friend who got all of the latest and greatest things. His family had a Zenith with remote control and we peons had an old RCA with an onboard channel selector. The envy was palpable.
There was one of these TVs (and the ultrasonic remote) at my fraternity house when I was in college. At that point, it was kind of old, but the remote worked fine. I had not seen one before, and I remember looking into the open end at the metal bars. That’s when I figured out how it must work. After that, I didn’t pay any attention to it…! A year or two later, we talked our alumni association into buying us a newer TV and the Zenith ended up on the curb where it was carried away by gypsies (I assumed - in a college town, junked items were always finding a new life).