And you can of course put the whole chessboard in a string ... blackwhite=$(tput rev; echo -n " "; tput sgr0; echo -n " ") whiteblack=$(tput sgr0; echo -

And you can of course put the whole chessboard in a string ... blackwhite=$(tput rev; echo -n " "; tput sgr0; echo -n " ") whiteblack=$(tput sgr0; echo -n " "; tput rev; echo -n " ") row_odd=$(for col in {1..4}; do echo -n "$whiteblack"; done; echo) row_even=$(for col in {1..4}; do echo -n "$blackwhite"; done; echo) chessboard=$(for i in {1..4}; do echo "$row_odd"; echo "$row_even"; done;tput sgr0)