FWIW, if you wind up needing *another* MAX232 for whatever reason, note that there are *clones* of the chip, which *AFAIK* are compatible, are often cheaper, and may be more readily available (eg from mail-order places).
For instance, I got myself some SP232-something chips, but this was for a project of my own design so I couldn't *swear* that the chips were perfectly compatible with the original versions (because it didn't matter to me), but that was definitely the impression I got, and you could check for yourself if it came to it.