Couple Who Made MAS Sticks/Superguns Has Passed Away

yagamikun

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Not directly Neo related, but I thought you all might want to know if you haven't yet heard (didn't see this posted on the forums, but I may have missed it)

The couple who predominantly built the MAS sticks and superguns in the 90's and early aughts recently passed in a fire a few days ago. Lynn died immediately, and Theo passed away recently due to too many injuries.

A Go Fund Me for the family as been started to help take care of medical bills and funeral services.

Many of us had/have MAS sticks - my first Supergun was a MAS and I still have an old Neo Twin MAS Stick that Kristoff and I used to play at his house when we were teenagers. These were the OG hardcore fighting game fan peripherals back in the day. Very sad to hear the news.
 

HornheaDD

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Oh my god thats horrible. I remember having a SuperNova as well.
 

fake

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Jesus. That's a terrible way to go. RIP.
 

skate323k137

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That is awful :(

My MAS is probably my most prized arcade stick. When I was younger I was working in New Orleans after huricane Katrina. I saved up my money to buy a completely custom MAS, wired for Gamecube, Dreamcast, and Playstation. I even had it shipped to my hotel, so I could use it for MAME on my laptop in my very sparse free time. I brought it home with me, and I used it for many years until the internals died, at which point I rewired it to DB-15 for use with padhacks and adapters, and I still use it to this day.

RIP, and condolences to the family.

MAS-1.jpeg
 
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Orpheus

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My god.
What sad & tragic news to hear.
Such a horrible tragedy for a family to have to go through.

Thank you for posting this here Y, and thanks for including the link to the go fund me page so help with the funeral.

It's ironic as I have been delving back into gaming recently & MAS/Super Nova stuff was at the top of my list. I mean, if you grew up with the american arcade controls it's hard to do better.

I was actually going to try & see if I can still contact MAS later this month to see if they still dabbled in taking orders.

R.I.P. Thao & Lynn. You guys made a hell of an impact on the gaming scene.
 
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sylvie

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DIdn't know them, but horrible news... it is adorable that a couple existed in the arcade community making sticks together. RIP
 

2D_mastur

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Wow. I still have my MAS stick and I had no idea as to it's history. Their products were quality. RIP.
 

redfield0009

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This is absolutely terrible. What city did they live in? There was a huge fire the other day in DFW that destroyed some apartments and houses.
 

wataru330

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They were in Orange County, CA.

It was a cooking fire. So tragic. Godspeed, you both.
 

Neodogg

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ugh, that sucks ballz. Theirs was my first super gun and was quality for what it was back then. I still have the pcb board for the rapid fire buttons I was going to put into a stick sometime.
 

Lagduf

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My sincere condolences to the family. A fire is a terrible way to go.

I have a MAS stick I bought probably in ‘02 or ‘03 I bought from these forums.
 

Fygee

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Absolutely horrible. Condolences to their loved ones.
 

max 330 mega

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Damn. My very first neo was a supernova and mvf1z board. Really nice guy to deal with over the phone. RIP to both.
 

Ajax

way more american than wyo, way more
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Very sorry to hear this. Rest easy to both of them.
 

NeoCverA

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I never gave much thought to who was actually behind MAS - I certainly would have never guessed a couple. Shitty way to go.
 

Geddon_jt

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Back in the late 90s, if you wanted to play MVS games at home, you got your supergun (1 of around 3 models available at the time), your debug BIOS from Jeff Kurtz, and your MAS sticks from Thao Nguyen. The guy was a legend. What a crazy and sad story, best wishes to his kids.
 

Heinz

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Obviously I am a million miles away from it all but over the years talk of MAS sticks and S'Guns have come up. Sad to hear of their demise, what a terrible way to go and for all the pleasure they've undoubtedly brought people they deserve our respects.

RIP
 

pixeljunkie

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So sad. Like others here, Supernova was my gateway into the hobby. Loved that setup.
 

SignOfGoob

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Bummer. Like many here, I for sure knew their stuff. My favorite feature of the MAS stuff was the HUGE wooden main section which was big enough to set almost any PCB on top of. When I see all these itty bitty teeny weeny super guns people sell now I always wonder, “yeah, but where does the board go? On the carpet? On top of the TV? It has to go somewhere.”
 

fenikso

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Condolences. Never owned any of their products, but I definitely consider them a part of the Neo scene. I'll donate to there GoFundMe tomorrow. So sad.
 

MetalSludge

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Such sad news. I just picked up a lovely AES MAS stick recently, as I always liked their work. I never had room for a cabinet, so MAS was a natural choice over the years for super gun, and now AES, controls. Feels like a small piece of the hobby's history has died. Rest in peace.
 

theMot

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Those sticks and super gun were legit. I wanted those back in the day and even reached out to Thao to discuss buying a set but the shipping was a killer to Aus.

Rip.
 
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