right and have the needles 50 go up and down simultaneously in one embodiment of the tufting machine 10 the bed rail drives 56 looper drives 58 knife drives 60 and hook drives 62 may be comprised of conventional drives for example shafts such as thompson shafts or hardin shafts have been used to cause balls to move in back and forth directions a jerker guide feeds yarn down to it with one tied down to one of the shifting shafts and letting a second needle shaft if more than one is present float in it the backing feet are all stationary and do not move the yarn passes through the needles 50 and then the hooks pick it up with the backing running under it fig4 a is an exploded view of the linear drive 52 used in the tufting machine 10 for shifting the needle bar 76 the linear drive 52 includes the linear motor 72 which includes a stator 94 and a shaft 92 the shaft 92 passes through the stator 94 and is connected to the shaft 82 of the needle bar 76 the linear drive 52 also includes the position sensor 74 which has a probe that extends the length of the motor 72 running through the center of the stator 94 the processor 20 may detect and monitor the position of the linear motor 72 in other ways preferably rather than using the sensors 85 86 and 87 and the marker 84 the linear motor 72 has a linear encoder attached to an end of the shaft 92 as shown in fig4 b.