Most local numbers were short and people developed a muscle memory for numbers they dialed frequently. Somewhere in the eighties we got phones with a memory for speed dialing. I think it's still called dialing a number even though that's not been a thing for a few decades.

Anyway, we had this exact model in our house when I was a kid in the seventies and eighties. The PTT (now KPN) had a monopoly on phone lines and rented out this model; so they were everywhere. Eventually newer models with keypads and memory functions came and the market opened up with more providers and different models. But that took quite some time to happen.

Rotary was fine until the first time I used Touch-Tone, as AT&T called it.

I also remember the old Western Electric 500 and its touch tone younger brother, the 2500. Those were phones that were built to last: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/Mo...

Then you listen to "Alpha" by Vangelis and shed a tear. Or three.