You could only program like 9 phone numbers on your phone because it only had 10 buttons for it and one of them was reserved for 911. All other numbers you either memorized, wrote down in a book or on cards, or dialed 411 to talk to a stranger whose job was to provide you with the contact information of people and businesses.
I utilized my skills of tiny writing from cheatsheets to fit every phone number I knew only a folded sticky note that lived in my wallet for probably 20 years before I realized it was long past being useful.
I had that on a particularly study business card. I used one of those fine-tip pens and got about 40 numbers on it. Now I talk to strangers on the internet, and the points don't matter.
I never got to use speed dial, but it sounds like the kind of thing I would have. Or one of those things I would’ve meant to get around to setting up but never bothered to..