An autonomous haptic stylus provides tactile feedback to a user writing or drawing on a smooth, uniform, touch-sensitive, glass display screen of a tablet, laptop computer, credit card point of sale device, or other device allowing a user to write or draw thereon. The stylus has an electrostatic detection sensor or a force/pressure sensor, which allows the stylus to detect certain characteristics of the display screen and to autonomously determine the position and/or velocity of the stylus on the display screen based on those characteristics. The position and/or velocity can be used to tailor the tactile feedback to the user. A display screen digitizer that provides driving signals for the row and column electrodes of a touch-sensitive display screen can be modified to transmit row and column information over the electrodes to allow a stylus to determine its position.