Thanks sonict72, yeah, tried some styli from HP tablet PCs (an Ntrig stylus from a tx2-1275dx and a Wacom Penabled stylus from a tx2517cl) and neither worked on my M96. It appears the info on the new US distributor's website is very wrong.
So, I went ahead and bought the replacement stylus for the Jetbook Color by Ectaco from their US website at
www.ectaco.com/JBC-stylus/
It cost me 20 USD total including shipping and arrived in 2 days. And I must say, it works even better than the original that came with my device (from Arta Tech). For more details, see my post
here in another thread.