(FORTUNE Magazine) – September 1 was a big day for high-tech hero Steve Wozniak, 37, the co-founder of Apple Computer who left in 1985 to start a new company, CL 9. After much hype and 18 months of delays, CL 9, short for Cloud Nine, shipped its first major product. It was CORE, a hand-size electronic device that allows consumers to operate all their home entertainment gear -- remote-control TV, VCR, and stereo -- from one central unit. Despite CORE's hefty $199 price tag, a 100-page user manual, and lots of cheaper competition, Wozniak claims he has more orders than he can fill for the next six months. Why, then, was the peripatetic entrepreneur instead preoccupied with a two- day trip he was about to make to Moscow? ''I told my Russian girlfriend I'd be back,'' says the Woz, who sponsored a rock concert in Moscow in July. There was also other unfinished business. ''Last time there, we found a bug,'' he says. ''You bet I'm gonna take some electronic equipment and screw 'em up.'' Chalk it up to a failing marriage (Wozniak is seeking divorce from his second wife, Olympic kayaker Candi Clark), a penchant for pranksterism, or creative burnout, but these days Wozniak seems more into larks than ledgers. His current passion is joint U.S.-Soviet events: he has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into video simulcasts between the two countries. His July 4 concert, which featured rockers such as James Taylor, the Doobie Brothers, and Santana, cost Wozniak ''high in the six figures.'' All the while, CL 9, which has yet to show a profit, continues to drift.