# Talk to the Past — An AI from before 1931 > AI chatbot simulating a person from 1930, trained on pre-1931 English text. (iPhone/iPad app by Alexander Knigge.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/talk-to-the-past/id6767060794 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [Alexander Knigge](https://appshunter.io/developer/1864440666) - Category: Education, Entertainment - Price: Free - Rating: 5.00/5 from 1 App Store ratings - Age rating: 4+ - Requires: iOS 17.0 · 3 MB - Languages: American English - Released: 2026-05-15 - Data updated: 2026-07-04 - Monetization: free - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/talk-to-the-past/id6767060794/reviews.md ## What is Talk to the Past? Talk to the Past is an AI correspondent who genuinely lives in 1930. He has not heard of the moon landing. He has not heard of the internet. He has, however, heard quite a lot about the cinema, the wireless, and the markets that crashed only last October. This is not a modern chatbot in costume. The character — Mr. W. Whitmore, a gentleman of London — speaks through talkie-1930-13b-it, an open-source 13-billion-parameter language model trained from the very first token of its corpus on English text written before 1931. No fine-tune. No "stay in character" system prompt. The vocabulary, the cadence, the opinions, the ignorance — all of it is what could have been read by candlelight or under a gaslamp before the year 1931 dawned. Built on a model released earlier this year by: — Alec Radford, researcher and architect of foundational language models — David Duvenaud, University of Toronto CS professor and former Alignment Evals lead at Anthropic — Nick Levine, an independent researcher and former financial historian at Winton INSIDE THE APP • A single deeply-realised correspondent — not a menu of four hundred shallow personas • Telegram-style dispatches you address to him; replies in italic letter form, streamed token-by-token as the wireless allows • Multi-conversation history kept entirely on your device — no accounts, no cloud, no analytics SDKs • A light, art-deco interface — cream paper, ink-blue type, IM Fell English NO ADS. NOT NOW. NOT EVER. We will not show advertising in the middle of a letter. We will not sell your conversations. The only thing keeping the wireless office open is the subscription. FREE Ten dispatches per day. The office reopens at midnight. No accounts, no signup. Just open the app and write. PRO — $2.99 a month Unlimited dispatches. Cancel anytime in your Apple ID settings. Pricing displayed in your App Store's local currency at the moment of purchase. The subscription covers the running cost of the model and keeps the line open for everyone else. A NOTE ON MR. WHITMORE He can be wrong. He invents on occasion. He sometimes mistakes the year of your question and recovers with a small embarrassment. Treat him as you would any letter from a stranger from the past — for what he knew of his world, not as a reference text. He is a 1930 mind reaching across nearly a century of telegraph wire, and the joins occasionally show. We think the magic is in those joins. We hope you'll find it too. — Talk to the Past is an independent project. The talkie-1930-13b-it model is released under Apache 2.0 by its authors; this app is not affiliated with them. ## Key features - AI correspondent from 1930 - Telegram-style dispatches - Italic letter replies - On-device conversation history - Art-deco interface - No accounts or cloud storage ## Frequently asked questions about Talk to the Past ### Does Talk to the Past have ads? No, Talk to the Past is completely ad-free. The developers explicitly state they will never show advertising in the app. ### What is the cost of Talk to the Past? The app is free to download and use, offering ten dispatches per day. An optional 'PRO' subscription is available for $2.99 per month for unlimited dispatches. ### How does Talk to the Past simulate historical accuracy? It uses an open-source language model trained exclusively on English text written before 1931, ensuring the AI's vocabulary, cadence, and knowledge are historically accurate for that period. ### Is my conversation data stored on Talk to the Past? No, all conversation history is kept entirely on your device. The app does not use accounts, cloud storage, or analytics SDKs, ensuring user privacy. ### What devices is Talk to the Past available on? Talk to the Past is available on iPhone and iPad devices. ### How often is Talk to the Past updated? The app was last updated on May 18, 2026, to version 1.0.1. This indicates a recent update, suggesting ongoing development and support. ### Can I cancel my Talk to the Past PRO subscription? Yes, you can cancel your PRO subscription at any time through your Apple ID settings. The subscription covers the running costs of the AI model. ### What is the age rating for Talk to the Past? Talk to the Past has an age rating of 4+, making it suitable for a wide range of users. ## Version history (last 2 releases) ### 1.0.1 — 2026-05-18 - Fixed subscriptions - Server connection improvements ### 1.0 — 2026-05-15 No release notes. ## More apps by Alexander Knigge - [AudioPrompt](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/audioprompt/id6757090596) - [MobileCLI](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/mobilecli/id6757689455) - [Symbol Atlas](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/symbol-atlas/id6762561868) - [Hex Code Tiles](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/hex-code-tiles/id6762845110) - [Artifact: Art Feed & Museums](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/artifact-art-feed-and-museums/id6764654402) All apps by Alexander Knigge: https://appshunter.io/developer/1864440666 --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-07-04.*