several attempts at making it faster

coloring/gradient_40x160.ps1

@@ -11,6 +11,8 @@ function Get-Character {
     return $index -ge ($mystring.Length) ? ' ' : $mystring[$index]
 }
 
+# write one cell at at time moving the cursor across the screen
+# ~1900 ms
 function main {
     # This is the same script as gradient.ps1 but hard coded
     # to 40x160 for nushell comparisions
@@ -24,4 +26,61 @@ function main {
     }
 }
 
-main
+# Store the row in an array and then iterate the array to print it out a row at a time
+# ~180 ms - This is printing double bytes or something - not sure what's going on
+# Note that the x loop has half the characters so it doesn't count
+function main2 {
+    # This is the same script as gradient.ps1 but hard coded
+    # to 40x160 for nushell comparisions
+    for ($y = 0; $y -le 39; $y++) {
+        $Color = 25
+        $row = @()
+        for ($x = 0; $x -le 79; $x++) {
+            $row += ("`e[48;2;0;0;$Color`m{0}" -f (Get-Character -Index $x))
+            $Color += 2
+        }
+        $row += "`e[0m`n"
+        ,$row | foreach{Write-Host $_ -NoNewline}
+    }
+}
+
+# Store the characters in a string and contatenate, then output a row at a time
+# ~265 ms
+function main3 {
+    # This is the same script as gradient.ps1 but hard coded
+    # to 40x160 for nushell comparisions
+    for ($y = 0; $y -le 39; $y++) {
+        $Color = 25
+        $row = ""
+        for ($x = 0; $x -le 159; $x++) {
+            $row += ("`e[48;2;0;0;$Color`m{0}" -f (Get-Character -Index $x))
+            $Color += 2
+        }
+        $row += "`e[0m"
+        Write-Host $row
+    }
+}
+
+# Store as a stringbuilder object
+# ~240 ms
+function main4 {
+    # This is the same script as gradient.ps1 but hard coded
+    # to 40x160 for nushell comparisions
+    $row = [System.Text.StringBuilder]""
+    for ($y = 0; $y -le 39; $y++) {
+        $Color = 25
+        $row.Clear()
+        for ($x = 0; $x -le 159; $x++) {
+            $row.Append("`e[48;2;0;0;$Color`m{0}" -f (Get-Character -Index $x))
+            $Color += 2
+        }
+        $row.Append("`e[0m")
+        Write-Host $row.ToString()
+    }
+}
+
+# measure-command -expression { .\gradient_40x160.ps1 }
+# main
+# main2
+# main3
+main4