> I mean something useful like command history which you can browse normally
> with the arrow keys...

In addition to pointed out ctrl-p ctrl-n there are (at least in zsh and bash)
convenient commands for incremental history search ^r, ^x r, ^s, ^x s.

--
Denis Lagno,
PGP key fingerprint: F94F F38F 1895 E673 4374 9D63 2B9E FAB3 8E83 584C