What was going on when I was born?

Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries appeared near agreement tonight to limit production in an effort to reduce the worldwide oversupply of oil and bolster rapidly weakening prices. The OPEC oil ministers are scheduled to continue their talks Saturday. A general agreement on production levels in individual countries would be the first by the organization. Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, oil minister of Saudi Arabia, told reporters toward the end of the OPEC meeting today that ''we have reached agreement on a ceiling of 18 million'' barrels a day. That would represent a small reduction of about 200,000 barrels from the current estimated output by the 13 members.

The United States has increased the number of its military advisers in Honduras to as many as 100 since the start of the year. The State Department said the increase was meant to help enhance that country's security in the face of a military buildup in neighboring Nicaragua. The increase makes the number of United States advisers in Honduras the largest attached to any country in Central America. In El Salvador, for instance, the number is about 55.

Despite millions of dollars spent for ambitious computer operations, authorities say New York City's criminal-justice system is still seriously hampered by missing, delayed and uncoordinated information about individual defendants and about how the system itself is working. In fact, some say the computers themselves have become part of the problem because of a proliferation of systems that do not ''talk'' to each other. The result is that court cases are often delayed, the authorities say, making it difficult for prosecutors and judges to determine how to proceed against defendants or unfairly penalizing defendants. The insufficiency of information also contributes to overcrowding in the city's jails, some critics charge. Moreover, they say, it impedes efforts to determine whether the major elements of the justice system - the laws and courts, the police and prison and probation policies - are working effectively and what changes should be made.

President Reagan is considering support of a bill to provide an immediate $1 billion in Government mortgage subsidies for the housing industry, White House aides said today. But Mr. Reagan also made clear that he felt Congressional inaction on his budget was hurting the housing industry by keeping interest rates high. The President met today with housing leaders, who told him that the industry was on the point of collapse. In another reflection of the recession that has gripped the nation since last summer, the Commerce Department said a preliminary estimate showed that the economy had shrunk at a 4.5 percent annual rate in the current quarter. (Page 33.)

Negotiations between the United Automobile Workers and the General Motors Corporation were recessed early this morning after difficulties arose over several issues. But the talks were to resume at 9 A.M. amid continued hope that an agreement was near. In a brief statement to reporters shortly after midnight, Douglas A. Fraser, the union president, said, ''We're not going to settle tonight. Snags have developed in certain areas such as profit sharing.''

Nicaragua called today for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council to denounce what it described as an ''imminent'' invasion of its territory by the United States or by paramilitary groups supported and encouraged by Washington. In a letter requesting the meeting, the coordinator of Nicaragua's three-man junta, Daniel Ortega Saavedra, said international peace was threatened by ''the constant worsening of tensions in Central America and the increasingly evident danger of a large-scale military intervention by the armed forces of the United States.'' Uncertainty at U.N. At the United Nations, it was uncertain whether Nicaragua could gain the nine Security Council votes necessary to convene a meeting. Nicaragua's appeal for the meeting was disclosed by the Foreign Minister, the Rev. Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, at a news conference to which the entire diplomatic corps was invited. Roger Gamble, who remains United States charge d'affaires until the newly arrived American Ambassador, Anthony C.E. Quainton, presents his credentials, later told reporters that ''the terms used and the charges made were offensive, unacceptable and without foundation.'' In Washington, the State Department said tonight: ''Nicaragua's charges are nonsense. They are obviously designed to divert attention from Nicaragua's active involvement in the region.'' On Thursday, the Justice Department said it was investigating the activities of a Miami-based group called the National Liberation Army that says it has blown up six bridges in Nicaragua.

New York State agreed yesterday to buy a sharply increased amount of hydroelectric energy from the Province of Quebec, enabling the state to reduce its dependence on more costly electricity generated with imported oil. The contract was initialed by Governor Carey, Premier Rene Levesque of Quebec and the chairmen of the state and provincial power agencies. It is designed to provide New York with 111 billion kilowatt hours of hydroelectric energy from 1984 to 1997 and eliminate the need to burn almost eight billion gallons of oil.

There is a strong whiff of spring in the wind that sweeps across the Vistula River. Day after day the sun pokes through the gray skies. It bathes the city in gold and steadily melts the few remaining humps of blackened snow and ice, which have retreated to the most darkly shaded corners in courtyards and parks. But Warsaw does not seem very spring-like. There are not many smiles to be seen on the faces of the mothers who push baby carriages along the promenades, the infants inside propped up and still bundled with layers of sweaters and coats as if they were facing a Siberian winter. There is listlessness and lethargy about. ''I was going to take my car out last weekend and wash it,'' said one resident, ''and then I thought: Why bother? I can't get enough gasoline anyway.'' Under martial law, Poles are rationed to between 8 and 12 gallons of gasoline a month.

The baptism of Lech Walesa's baby daughter may or may not take place this Sunday and the Solidarity leader may or may not be allowed to attend, but in any case the entire event is shaping up as a problem for the martial law authorities. The Government has not made clear whether or not it intends to temporarily release Mr. Walesa, who has been in isolated internment on the outskirts of Warsaw, so that he may attend the ceremony. In fact, it has gone to some length to spread confusion about the matter. On the one hand, the authorities apparently fear that the labor leader's first public appearance since martial law was imposed Dec. 13 might set off public disturbances, or at least draw a huge crowd that could be difficult to control. There is also the danger, from the Government's point of view, that Mr. Walesa might make what it would regard as an impolitic statement about the country's political situation, especially if Western journalists are present.

The Polish Journalists' Association, suspended under martial law more than three months ago, was dissolved by the Government today, an official announcement said. The official press agency quoted Warsaw's mayor, Gen. Mieczyslaw Debicki, as saying that the association, which backed the Solidarity union, ''undertook actions conducive to the dismantling of state and social institutions of public information.''

Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Carter, urged President Reagan today to take new initiatives to rally the West by proposing steps to ''reduce the level of East-West military confrontation'' in Europe and by offering ''a positive carrot'' of renewed Western economic aid for Poland as an inducement for Warsaw to end martial law. Mr. Brzezinski contended that ''the time has come for Reagan to begin a major political initiative'' to halt the deterioration of relations between the United States and its allies caused by policy differences over the Middle East, Central America and East-West relations. Specifically, Mr. Brzezinski suggested that President Reagan offer to reduce the American inventory of tactical nuclear warheads in Europe in exchange for some cutback in Soviet tank forces in East Germany and Soviet tactical nuclear weapons in East Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia. If the initial steps bear fruit, he told reporters over breakfast, they could be followed by a proposal to set up a nuclear-free zone in northern Europe, including Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and the Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia in the Soviet Union.

Under Secretary of State James L. Buckley received what NATO sources described as a sympathetic but reserved response when he briefed the allies today on United States proposals to raise the cost of credit to the Soviet Union. Mr. Buckley, on the last leg of a five-nation tour of Western Europe, gave NATO ambassadors details of the Washington plan at a meeting of the North Atlantic Council, the highest authority of the alliance and a forum for consultations between member nations. He had previously visited Bonn, Paris, London and Rome. After his visit to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters here, he visited the European Common Market Commission and the Belgian Foreign Ministry.