What was going on when I was born?

MOST new clock designs amount to little more than a modified face on a modified case. But over the last decade a new type of clock has appeared in which design, as much as time, is of the essence. These are the designer clocks in which new graphic, kinetic, sculptural, sound and light features have assumed a strong importance, sometimes at the expense of clarity. Most of these clocks are handsome; some are difficult to read. They range in price from moderate to expensive. ''Clocks now fall into the ashtray and salt-and-pepper shaker category - all designers have to design one,'' says Kipp Trafton, the owner of Sointu, a shop on 69th Street near Madison Avenue. But designers are looking not only at the clock face and case; they are also reconsidering just what it is in the movement of a clock that shows that time is passing. Some designer clocks are new ways to tell time - so new that such old-time expressions as clockworks, clockwise, counterclockwise, around the clock and the sweep of time are anachronistic.

Spring arrived this week, and at the Institute for Advanced Study, the season seemed lost in thought. Even in a place well known for producing fresh ideas, it has been an especially fertile and, at times, esoteric academic year. Dr. Robert Sleigh, for example, a philosopher from the University of Massachusetts, is here for a year reassessing the work of Baron Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, a 17th-century German philosopher and mathematician who believed the universe was the result of a divine plan. ''If you were looking for candidates for the best minds in the Western world, he would be on everybody's list,'' Dr. Sleigh said. Meanwhile, Dr. Piet Hut, an astrophysicist from the University of Amsterdam, is studying the effects of interlopers in binary star systems. That is, he wants to know what happens when a single star comes into contact with two stars that are revolving around each other.

Consumer prices, pulled down by a record decline in gasoline prices, fell two-tenths of 1 percent in February, the Labor Department said today. The decline in the Consumer Price Index, helped by stable prices for food and housing, was the second in three months and brought the inflation rate for the past 12 months to 3.5 percent. The official rate for 1982 was 3.9 percent, which was the lowest since 1972. In the New York-northeastern New Jersey area, the price index was unchanged in February. (Page D2.) President Reagan said in a statement, ''Today's inflation report brings more good news to American wage earners and consumers.'' He said the report ''confirms once again that we are putting inflation back in its cage and that our economy is on the mend.''

An obituary of George Kramer yesterday gave his age incorrectly and misspelled the names of two survivors. Mr. Kramer was 76 years old and among the survivors were a sister, Rose Fiegel, and a brother, Edward Kayett.

In 1981, when the first signs of a subsequent, two-year profit slide began to appear, Levi Strauss & Company responded by setting up an in-house venture-capital fund. The company, the maker of Levi's jeans and the world's largest apparel maker, offered a dozen competing teams of middle managers the lure of a $500,000 budget to come up with new product ideas. The budget, and the right to pursue the idea, would go to the team with the idea that senior management considered the best. Like many recent ideas at Levi Strauss, the experiment appears to have paid off: the winner of the competition, a prewashed denim jean with leather patches and copper rivets called ''Two-Horse Jeans,'' is expected to register $20 million in sales this year after its 1982 introduction.

Mayor Jane M. Byrne abruptly ended her week-long write-in candidacy for re-election tonight, hours after she was rebuffed in her efforts to pursuade the Chicago Board of Elections to simplify write-in voting procedures. Mayor Byrne said she decided to end her long-shot candidacy because of the likelihood of a drawn-out court fight to override the election board's decision. But her write-in effort was also troubled by two other major obstacles: the overwhelming opposition of key leaders of the Democratic Party and the failure of the write-in effort to generate the groundswell of public support that she had predicted. 'Confusion' and Delay In a short statement announcing her decision, Mayor Byrne said a protracted court battle ''will tend to lead to further confusion among the voters and cause a delay in the decision-making process of the electorate.''

The Economy Consumer prices fell 0.2 percent in February because of steep declines in gasoline prices and stability in food and housing costs. The drop brought the inflation rate for the past 12 months to 3.5 percent. (Page A1.) Prices in the New York area were unchanged. (D2.) The House approved the Democrats' budget for fiscal year 1984 by a vote of 229 to 196. The package proposes $863.6 billion in spending for the year beginning next Oct.1, compared with President Reagan's $848.5 billion request. (A1.) The vote establishes the Democrats' control over the House. (A27.)

ENTERING an interior by Michael Formica can be a disorienting experience. Windows are bare or covered with tattered cotton; floors are uncarpeted; walls are bereft of artwork. Sometimes a bare bulb hangs from the ceiling. The paint appears if it is peeling from the walls. There are bedrooms without beds, dining chairs with no table in sight and a garden seat that looks like a three-dimensional line drawing. Each element is part of a special and inventive mastery of design, and the four small apartments in which they appear is the intriguing handiwork of Mr. Formica, whose technique might be likened to that of a behind-the-scenes magician. In an era when designers' personalities and their particular visual signatures are highly cultivated commodities, the diversity of Mr. Formica's work is refreshing. Although the 28-year-old designer often approaches a given space as a minimalist might - by keeping furnishings to a minimum and focusing on architectural features - he does not shy away from using objects and giving a room a look that can be described as ''decorative.'' While his rooms are sparsely furnished, they are bare without being cool, and, at times, they can be romantic.

''Up until now we have increasingly based our strategy of deterrence upon the threat of retaliation. But what if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to deter a Soviet attack; that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies?'' - President Reagan. (A20:6.)

Newcomers are changing the face of Australia A2 Poland announces austerity program of hard work A3 Funeral of slain Greek publisher turns into a protest A4 Around the World A5 U.S. hasn't asked Canada for missile test, Bush says A6 Three West German coalition parties agree on policy A7 NATO ministers endorse U.S. position on missiles A8 Moscow publicizes righting of a case of injustice A9 Guatemalan leader lifts state of siege A11 Documents made public by Foreign Relations Committee A21 Showing of secrets was U.S. compromise A22 Government/Politics Gallup Poll gives edge to Glenn and Mondale A14 Republican favored to win Colorado House race A18 Washington Talk Briefing B14 Speaker's Club and other groups promoting special access B14 Working Profile: French Ambassador Bernard Vernier-Palliez B14 General Around the Nation A18 Defense rests in New Orleans officers' rights case A25 Big toxic waste hauler accused of illegal business practices B12 Industry/Labor Metro-North Railroad lays off 550 workers as strike continues B9 News Analysis Charles Mohr assesses Reagan's "vision of the future" A21 Steven V. Roberts on House Democrats' budget victory A27 The Home Section Home Spareness gains new meaning in a quartet of city apartments C1 In the new clocks, design, not time, is of the essence C1 Helpful Hardware C2 Home Beat C3 Home Improvement C4 Hers C2 Gardening C5 A new formality at Saint Laurent C8 Shade can be new, even if lamp isn't C12 Arts/Entertainment Mayor Koch to press his plan for tax on theater tickets C14 Fugard's "Master Harold" stuns Johannesburg audience C17 A.R. Gurney Jr.'s "The Dining Room" opens C17 Francois Klaus's New York debut in "Mahler Symphony" C20 A collection of short stories by Julio Cortazar reviewed C21 The operas of Virgil Thomson C30 "The Limbo Connection" begins on television C31 Channel 13 attempt to rescue Dial magazine said to unravel C31 Obituaries Dr. Cynthia Westcott, plant pathologist and rose expert B10 Rabbi Saul Lieberman, head of seminary's rabbinical school B10 Sports Pages Cavaliers defeat Knicks, 84-81 B15 Rangers rout Red Wings, 7-1 B15 Tracy Austin struggles to victory at Garden, 5-7, 6-1, 7-6 B15 Emotions excite North Carolina State and Boston College B15 Louisville and its center, Charles Jones, making a long run B15 Nets down Jazz, 124-104 B16 Veryzer of Mets is hoping to win a regular job B16 Piniella takes patient view of his spring batting slump B16 Dave Anderson on Derek Sanderson's reappearance B17 Players: The peripatetic No. 1 in pro squash B19 Bill to seek live TV of racing in OTB parlors B19 Features/Notes New York Day by Day B2 Going Out Guide C15 Editorials/Letters/Op-Ed Editorials A30 Steel strings for Salvador's aid A new license for censors Ranch houses? Where? Topics: Television trials Letters A30 Anthony Lewis: Courts in contempt A31 William Safire: Race in Chicago A31 Aaron David Miller: P.L.O.'s crossroads A31 Nat Hentoff: A specter Hoovering over F.B.I. A31

The Occidental Petroleum Corporation, in a move to reduce its $4.1 billion of debt, announced today that it was selling the refining and marketing operations and certain gasoline inventories of its Cities Service Company subsidiary for $567 million. The Southland Corporation, the nation's largest independent retailer of gasoline, is the purchaser; it will pay in stock for the refining and marketing operations and in cash for the gasoline. Southland will also pay $360 million in cash to replace gasoline inventories that Occidental plans to sell to another company, and $40 million to purchase various receivables from Occidental. Southland will also invest $160 million in improvements at a Cities Service refinery that it is purchasing.

On April 1, a clerk in a Long Island office of Citicorp will make history by picking up the phone and dialing a Citicorp office in California. It will be the first time a financial company will have used its own satellite communications system to connect its offices across the country, bypassing such common carriers as the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and Western Union. The moment will mark Citicorp's way of challenging the communications companies, which the bank says have been raising its domestic communications bills by 20 percent a year. While Citicorp is taking its own approach, other financial services companies, which have similar problems, are not sure it is the best. Some contend that in the long run, as competitive forces depress prices, it would be cheaper and more efficient to work with the common carriers.