What was going on when I was born?

In an industry in which egos frequently are as large as the products are small, Adam Osborne may take the prize for each. Mr. Osborne is the founder and president of the Osborne Computer Corporation, which makes a portable, mass-marketed personal computer that is quickly gaining popularity. Mr. Osborne is also an uninhibited commentat or on the personal computer industry and is quick to find fault with his competitors andto boast of his own accomplishments. ''I liken myself to Henry Ford and the auto industry,'' he said during an interview in his office, south of Oakland. ''I give you 90 percent of what most people need.

International Nearly 200 Poles were arrested in Poznan, a city in western Poland, when they tried to hold a demonstration to protest martial law, the Warsaw radio said. In Warsaw, a series of symbolic protests urged by the Solidarity trade union failed to take place. (Page A1, Column 6.) Israel will oppose more arms sales to Jordan by the United States. Israel's Cabinet Secretary, Aryeh Naor, said that Israel ''won't sit in silence'' over the potential change in the Middle East balance of power in a response to Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger's announcement Saturday that he would recommend to President Reagan the sale of more arms to Jordan. (A1:3.)

France's Socialist Government began taking control of a huge slice of the country's privately owned industry and banking this weekend. When the program is completed, probably this summer, more industry will be under Government control than in any other country in Western Europe. State-owned companies will employ roughly 23 percent of the work force, and the Government will control 75 percent of all bank deposits and loans as well as 29 percent of the country's industrial production. For the Socialists, the program is the cornerstone of a high-risk strategy for breaking out of the economic recession afflicting all the major Western industrial economies.

The continuing differences between Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. and Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger seem so obvious to some ranking officials that they say the effective management of the Reagan Administration's foreign policy is being threatened. It has been clear for some time that the disagreements between the two secretaries were more than the usual State Department-Pentagon rivalries, despite repeated efforts by both men and their aides to gloss them over publicly. But in recent months, with the Administration deeply involved in trying both to maintain a cease-fire in the Middle East and to keep the Western alliance together in the midst of the Polish crisis, these Haig-Weinberger differences appear more acute. White House Frowns on Conflict Because the White House has made it clear that it does not like to see any public debate among its top aides, Mr. Haig and Mr. Weinberger have been under pressure to play down the intensity of the conflict. Mr. Haig, who lacks Mr. Weinberger's longstanding personal friendship with the President, has in particular sought to avoid any public clash. However, when pressed today about public disagreements on how hard to press the Soviet Union, Mr. Haig acknowledged on the ABC News television program ''This Week'' that the dispute existed.

Congress shows little interest in abolishing the Department of Energy, a step that has long been sought by the President. Key House and Senate members object to the move, and many others find it politically unappealing. (D1.)

A courtly, white-haired university administrator who has spent part of the last four years organizing such seminars as ''New Fiscal Realities'' and ''Labor Relations'' now has his chance to practice what he preached. Last Thursday the Pace University administrator, Dr. Sal J. Prezioso, was named City Manager of Yonkers, a community with all of the urban problems that have arisen in his seminars. Dr. Prezioso, who lives in Pound Ridge, will be this financially troubled city's sixth manager since 1974 and its first since that year to have run a local government. He is a former Adminstrator of Long Branch, N.J., and once was the top appointed official in Westchester County. In 1970 he was New York State's first Commissioner of Parks and Recreation.

In the age of image, New Jersey has a problem. The barbs and cuts come from all quarters, but are sharpest closest to home. Woody Allen, a New Yorker, once wrote: ''A certain intelligence governs our universe, except in certain parts of New Jersey.'' Then there are the ancient passing slurs: ''A queer place,'' said Henry David Thoreau. ''Stupid, irritating Jersey,'' said Mark Twain. Even modern research reveals that the state carries a stain: There is ''a widespread image among nonresident technical and management prospects that New Jersey is a terrible place to live,'' states Future Enterprises Inc., a Washington-based consulting concern, in a draft of a 1982 report for the Governor's Office of Policy and Planning in Trenton.

The police arrested 194 people in the western city of Poznan Saturday when they tried to hold a demonstration to protest martial law, the Warsaw radio said today. The radio said new martial law restrictions were immediately imposed on Poznan, about 200 miles west of Warsaw, following the arrests Saturday. In the capital, today, symbolic protests urged by the underground Solidarity labor union failed to take place. Troops and the police patrolled the streets in force both in anticipation of trouble and to discourage it.

Four new office buildings are nearing completion in the central business district that rims San Diego Bay. As the first new towers to be built here in seven years, they are symbols of this city's economic surge. Encouraged by a pro-business Republican mayor, Pete Wilson; one of the nati on's mildest climates, and an aggress ive business recruiting campaign, a growing number of companies have brought their headquarters or new operatons to the area. ''The city doesn't throw any unreasonable barriers in your way,'' said Ralph W. Miller, general manager of a computer-chip manufacturing plant that TRW Inc. will open next month in nearby Campus Point. ''In fact, they do a tremendous job of making it easy.''

Because of a computation error at the Hayden Planetarium, the Alma- nac section of the Weather Forecasts and Records from Feb. 1 through Feb. 8 listed incorrect times for the rising and setting of Mars. The correct times will be found today on page D8.

Next year - as in the old Brooklyn Dodger baseball war cry, ''Wait till next year'' - may be getting closer. The State Legislature has approved $30,000 in a supplemental deficiency budget to make a feasibility study of a domed sports stadium for Brooklyn. It is still only a gleam in sponsors' eyes, but the job has been assigned to the New York State Urban Development Corporation, which built a $28 million 55,000-seat domed stadium in Syracuse and is now building the New York City Convention Center in Manhattan. The item was shepherded through as a ''New York City professional sports feasibility study'' by State Senator Thomas J. Bartosiewicz, who, like countless other Brooklynites, never got over the move of the Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1957. He has been on a quest, he explained yesterday, ''to bring major league baseball back to the borough that proved you can win by losing.''

Washington's Birthday will be ob- served today (though the actual date is Feb. 22).