What was going on when I was born?

At every turn here, one confronts overwhelming evidence that Japan, more than any other nation, has embraced advanced electronic and computer technology as a way to improve industrial productivity, save energy and, in theory, make day-to-day life more convenient, enriching and entertaining. The influence of such technology is apparent in hundreds of small ways. In the Asahi Shimbun building, home of the leading Japanese newspaper, venetian blinds rise and fall at the whim of an energyconscious computer. In the Hotel Okura, a visitor does not have to request a wake-up call because a soft beep can be ordered for any time by punching a few buttons on an electronic bedside console. ''I've lived here for four years, so I should be inured to it, but I'm still struck every time I walk through Akihabara,'' said Eric W. Hayden, chief economist for the Bank of America's Asia division. He was referring to the bustling district of semiconductor shops that form a veritable electronics flea market. ''This is where these people really excel - in electronics,'' he added.

The Agriculture Department proposed today to reduce the amount of food served to children receiving federally subsidized lunches in schools throughout the country. The proposal would abandon a goal set at the program's inception 35 years ago: to serve lunches that give children one-third of the recommended dietary allowances for a variety of nutrients. The new rules do not set firm or precise overall nutritional goals. Agriculture Department officials said that the rules would diminish the cost of preparing a school lunch by reducing the quantity of food that must be served. This saving, in turn, would help schools cope with the reduction in school lunch subsidies mandated by Congress this year, the officials said.

The Board of Education and the city have reached an agreement that averts the possibility of hundreds of thousands of students being turned away from school next week because they have not been inoculated against childhood diseases. Parents of students requiring immunization will have two weeks after school starts Thursday to turn in consent forms authorizing inoculations by the City Health Department, Mayor Koch and Schools Chancellor Frank J. Macchiarola said at a news conference yesterday. In a separate announcement, the two officials set out plans for closer cooperation between the Board of Education and the city to strengthen security and reduce crime in the schools. No Firm Figures The agreement regarding inoculations headed off a major crisis for local schools. There are apparently no firm figures on the number of children lacking the inoculations, but estimates have ranged from 200,000 to 400,000.

State Department officials said today that the Soviet Union had withheld information on the number of troops involved in military maneuvers now being conducted in the Baltic region near Poland. Under the terms of the 1975 Helsinki accord s, notification of majormilitary exercises must include information o n the strength of the forces involved. This is the first time that the Soviet Union has failed to provide such information.

The Egyptian police used tear gas to break up demonstrations at several Cairo mosques today after the arrests of at least 1,000 critics of President Anwar el-Sadat. The two-day crackdown was the most sweeping conducted by Mr. Sadat during his 11 years in office. Among those arrested were Moslem fundamentalists, Coptic Christian clergymen, politicians, academicians, lawyers and journalists. Mohammed Hassanein Heikal, a prominent journalist who was an influential figure during the rule of Gamal Abdel Nasser, was one of those detained.

Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. said in an interview last night that the Reagan Administration had made considerable progress toward the independence of South-West Africa in behind-the-scenes discussions with South Africa. Mr. Haig's optimism, it was learned, stemmed from South Africa's return to Excerpts from interview, page 5. a position more in line with what it held in 1978, when negotiations for the independence of the territory as Namibia began in earnest. Between then and this year, South Africa's position had hardened considerably.

A Transit Authority police officer, firing at two suspects fleeing a pickpocketing yesterday, shot and killed a 26-year-old man who was riding by on a bicycle, the police said. Officer Marvin J. Zeigler, 34 years old and a seven-year veteran of the transit police, was held for questioning by the Brooklyn District Attorney's office, Transit Authority detectives and the New York City Police Department. No charges were filed against him immediately. The man on the bicycle was Gary Becton of 15 Stone Avenue, in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. He was on his way to his job at a National Guard armory at Bedford Avenue and President Street. when he was shot once in the head. He was pronounced dead at the scene on Eastern Parkway and taken to King's County Hospital.

The Government's Prod ucer Price Index for finished goods, a rough measure of the level of inflation consumers will face in the future, rose only three-tent hs of 1 percent in August, the Labor Department reported today. The small rise from July in the index, which measures price changes at the last stage of production, was partly a result of slight declines in meat and energy prices. Over all, food prices were up only two-tenths of 1 percent following a worrisome 1.5 percent July rise. The modest August increase in the index was equal to a rise of 3.6 percent at an annual rate.

The 82-year-old King of Swaziland celebrated the 60th year of his reign today by acting out in ceremonial form the mix of tribal tradition and modern nationalism that has enabled him to survive as Africa's most durable ruler. King Sobhuza II, known to his people as Ngwenyama, or Lion, of Swaziland, presented a series of visual paradoxes to an audience of more than 50,000 in a flag-bedecked stadium that included 3 African heads of state, at least 29 of his wives and 1,200 traditional warriors. The warriors had to wait patiently on the sidelines while their King, who was bare-chested and barefooted like them, reviewed the troops of his modern army after arriving for the ceremony in a Lincoln Continental. The army band then played Beethoven's ''Ode to Joy'' while the King - a leopard skin around his waist, eagle feathers in his hair and a staff with a battle-ax fixed to its top in his right hand - slowly made his way down the length of the stadium past the ranks of soldiers in smart, red-jacketed dress uniforms.

A bomb exploded at a bus terminal near here yesterday, killing one man, the South African Press Association reported today. It said reports indicated that the man was waiting for a bus when the explosion occurred and that no one had claimed responsibility for the attack.

A dispute between the State Department and the Arms Con trol and Disarmament Agency over which organization should have the chief responsibility for arms control negotiations became a public debate today. For several weeks, aides to Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. and Eugene V. Rostow, the arms control agency director, have been saying that their respective chiefs had the primary responsibility for negotiating with the Soviet Union and that their respective organizations would take the lead. The State Department issued a statement late yesterday that said, ''The State Department has and will continue to take the lead in this Administration, coordinating policy required to prepare for and support the conduct of arms control negotiations.''

President Reagan announced plans today to nominate new ambassadors to Uruguay, Morocco and Switzerland and a new representative to a United Nations commission on the status of women. Larry Speakes, the deputy White House press secretary, said the President intends to name Joseph Verner Reed Jr. of Greenwich, Conn., a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a vice president of the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York, as envoy to Morocco; Thomas Aranda Jr. of Phoenix, a lawyer and former Air Force officer who held several positions under President Gerald R. Ford, to Uruguay, and Faith Ryan Whittlesey of Haverford, Pa., an attorney and former member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, to Switzerland.