(yeah i said colours, not colors ~ brittish education) 
here's a few ways (and please shout at me to add scrots of the lot):
nice one liner, 256:
perl, 256:
a nice classic graph:
another nice classic graph:
another 256 list:
a lua one, alegedly:
ruby roo?!?
anyone got more?

here's a few ways (and please shout at me to add scrots of the lot):
nice one liner, 256:
Code Select
(x=`tput op` y=`printf %76s`;for i in {0..256};do o=00$i;echo -e ${o:${#o}-3:3} `tput setaf $i;tput setab $i`${y// /=}$x;done)
perl, 256:
Code Select
#!/usr/bin/perl
# Author: Todd Larason <jtl@molehill.org>
# $XFree86: xc/programs/xterm/vttests/256colors2.pl,v 1.2 2002/03/26 01:46:43 dickey Exp $
# use the resources for colors 0-15 - usually more-or-less a
# reproduction of the standard ANSI colors, but possibly more
# pleasing shades
# colors 16-231 are a 6x6x6 color cube
for ($red = 0; $red < 6; $red++) {
for ($green = 0; $green < 6; $green++) {
for ($blue = 0; $blue < 6; $blue++) {
printf("\x1b]4;%d;rgb:%2.2x/%2.2x/%2.2x\x1b\\",
16 + ($red * 36) + ($green * 6) + $blue,
($red ? ($red * 40 + 55) : 0),
($green ? ($green * 40 + 55) : 0),
($blue ? ($blue * 40 + 55) : 0));
}
}
}
# colors 232-255 are a grayscale ramp, intentionally leaving out
# black and white
for ($gray = 0; $gray < 24; $gray++) {
$level = ($gray * 10) + 8;
printf("\x1b]4;%d;rgb:%2.2x/%2.2x/%2.2x\x1b\\",
232 + $gray, $level, $level, $level);
}
# display the colors
# first the system ones:
print "System colors:\n";
for ($color = 0; $color < 8; $color++) {
print "\x1b[48;5;${color}m ";
}
print "\x1b[0m\n";
for ($color = 8; $color < 16; $color++) {
print "\x1b[48;5;${color}m ";
}
print "\x1b[0m\n\n";
# now the color cube
print "Color cube, 6x6x6:\n";
for ($green = 0; $green < 6; $green++) {
for ($red = 0; $red < 6; $red++) {
for ($blue = 0; $blue < 6; $blue++) {
$color = 16 + ($red * 36) + ($green * 6) + $blue;
print "\x1b[48;5;${color}m ";
}
print "\x1b[0m ";
}
print "\n";
}
# now the grayscale ramp
print "Grayscale ramp:\n";
for ($color = 232; $color < 256; $color++) {
print "\x1b[48;5;${color}m ";
}
print "\x1b[0m\n";
a nice classic graph:
Code Select
#!/bin/bash
#
# This file echoes a bunch of color codes to the
# terminal to demonstrate what's available. Each
# line is the color code of one forground color,
# out of 17 (default + 16 escapes), followed by a
# test use of that color on all nine background
# colors (default + 8 escapes).
#
T='TiP' # The test text
echo -e "\n 40m 41m 42m 43m\
44m 45m 46m 47m";
for FGs in ' m' ' 1m' ' 30m' '1;30m' ' 31m' '1;31m' ' 32m' \
'1;32m' ' 33m' '1;33m' ' 34m' '1;34m' ' 35m' '1;35m' \
' 36m' '1;36m' ' 37m' '1;37m';
do FG=${FGs// /}
echo -en " $FGs \033[$FG $T "
for BG in 40m 41m 42m 43m 44m 45m 46m 47m;
do echo -en "$EINS \033[$FG\033[$BG $T \033[0m";
done
echo;
done
echo
another nice classic graph:
Code Select
#!/bin/bash
#
# Description:
#
# Prints a color table of 8bg * 8fg * 2 states (regular/bold)
#
# Copyright:
#
# (C) 2009 Wolfgang Frisch <xororand@unfoog.de>
#
# License:
#
# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
echo
echo Table for 16-color terminal escape sequences.
echo Replace ESC with \\033 in bash.
echo
echo "Background | Foreground colors"
echo "---------------------------------------------------------------------"
for((bg=40;bg<=47;bg++)); do
for((bold=0;bold<=1;bold++)) do
echo -en "\033[0m"" ESC[${bg}m | "
for((fg=30;fg<=37;fg++)); do
if [ $bold == "0" ]; then
echo -en "\033[${bg}m\033[${fg}m [${fg}m "
else
echo -en "\033[${bg}m\033[1;${fg}m [1;${fg}m"
fi
done
echo -e "\033[0m"
done
echo "--------------------------------------------------------------------- "
done
echo
echo
another 256 list:
Code Select
#! /bin/bash
for i in {0..255} ; do
printf "\x1b[38;5;${i}mcolour${i}\n"
done
a lua one, alegedly:
Code Select
#!/usr/bin/env lua
function cl(e)
return string.format('\27[%sm', e)
end
function print_fg(bg, pre)
for fg = 30,37 do
fg = pre..fg
io.write(cl(bg), cl(fg), string.format(' %6s ', fg), cl(0))
end
end
for bg = 40,47 do
io.write(cl(0), ' ', bg, ' ')
print_fg(bg, ' ')
io.write('\n ')
print_fg(bg, '1;')
io.write('\n\n')
end
ruby roo?!?
Code Select
#!/usr/bin/env ruby
# coding: utf-8
# ANSI color scheme script
# Author: Ivaylo Kuzev < Ivo >
# Original: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/post/134749/#p134749
# Modified using Ruby.
CL = "\e[0m"
BO = "\e[1m"
R = "\e[31m"
G = "\e[32m"
Y = "\e[33m"
B = "\e[34m"
P = "\e[35m"
C = "\e[36m"
print <<EOF
#{BO}#{R} ██████ #{CL} #{BO}#{G}██████ #{CL}#{BO}#{Y} ██████#{CL} #{BO}#{B}██████ #{CL} #{BO}#{P} ██████#{CL} #{BO}#{C} ███████#{CL}
#{BO}#{R} ████████#{CL} #{BO}#{G}██ ██ #{CL}#{BO}#{Y}██ #{CL} #{BO}#{B}██ ██#{CL} #{BO}#{P}██████ #{CL} #{BO}#{C} █████████#{CL}
#{R} ██ ████#{CL} #{G}██ ████#{CL}#{Y} ████ #{CL} #{B}████ ██#{CL} #{P}████ #{CL} #{C}█████ #{CL}
#{R} ██ ██#{CL} #{G}██████ #{CL}#{Y} ████████#{CL} #{B}██████ #{CL} #{P}████████#{CL} #{C}██ #{CL}
EOF
anyone got more?