Work on the plan, supported by a grant from the Council for Cultural Planning and Development, got under way in July 1984 and is expected to take six years to complete. The ultimate goal is to store the complete text of China's 25 traditional dynastic histories, around 60 million Chinese characters, onto one thin computer disk, enabling researchers to search, index, and analyze the material by software commands.
整個計畫由文建會撥款補助，從七十三年七月開始，預定進行六年，目標是把廿五史全文輸入電腦，將近六千萬字儲存在一片薄薄的光碟片裡，再透過軟體的指示，進行查詢、整理、分析等工作。