The passphrase is hashed to the key, though, not just used literally as the key, right? Otherwise the security would be terrible; there's a lot less than 104 bits of entropy in any reasonable 13-character password.

Now whether the hash in question is standardised across manufacturers, that's anyone's guess; that'd be why they let you enter the 26 hex digits of the actual key instead.

Having said that, I've never persuaded my own laptop to join any encrypted network, but I always put that down to the extreme antiquity of the Wifi card (which was scavenged from a Sparcstation Voyager when the laptop's internal Wifi broke).

Peter