My success with MAX232 has been a little limited lately, but I noticed the T2OUT line is tied to the serieal port in the diagram. The TTL signals on this line are probably falling under RS-232's noise margin and be rejected by the PC. But quote me on that, because I'm no expert on RS-232. signaling.
Good luck on the circuit! And let us know how it goes. (I'm trying to do something like this soon too).