U.S. patent number T966,005 [Application Number 05/812,770] was granted by the patent office on 1978-01-03 for repertory dialer. This patent grant is currently assigned to Bell Telephone Laboratories Incorporated. Invention is credited to Dean Gillette.

a repertory dialer is disclosed that includes a solid state display and a telephone keyboard coupled to a solid state memory. The solid state display comprises a plurality of alphanumeric characters, the first of which is used to provide an alphabetical index. The rest of the characters are divided into a name display and a telephone number display. The telephone keyboard is used to generate alphabetic and numeric inputs to the memory. A five-button scanning control causes the alphanumeric information stored in the memory to be sequentially displayed. Scanning is achieved by the operation of either a fast forward button, a slow forward button, a stop button, a slow backward button, or a fast backward button. Record and call function select buttons are used to select either the record or call modes of operation.