What was going on when I was born?

An opera listing in The Guide on Sunday gave an incorrect location for a concert by the New York Lyric Opera scheduled for Thursday at 8 P.M. It will take place at the Fashion Institute of Technology, 227 W. 27th St.

The largest bingo parlor in the West looms above the mesquite and cactus of the Yaqui Indian Reservation like a desert mirage: a 20,000-square-foot cinderblock building that cost $1 million to build and seats as many as 1,300 players at a time. Since the tribe started the operation two months ago, more than 800 people a night, most of them the elderly or blue-collar workers from Tucson, have crowded the giant hall to compete for regular nightly prizes of nearly $12,000. The stakes are three times higher than what local church or nonprofit charity bingo games are allowed to offer off the reservation because, under a 1981 Supreme Court decision involving a Florida case, the state does not have the authority to regulate many activities on the federally governed reservations. Like a growing number of Indian tribes around the nation, the Yaquis have turned to bingo as a way of bringing jobs and money, perhaps more than $1 million a year, to their poverty-stricken reservation. By some estimates, as many as 40 tribes from Maine to California have begun high-stakes bingo operations in the last 18 months, and dozens more are planning their own operations.

The makers of electronic chips, after suffering through poor sales last autumn and early winter, appear to be in the first stage of a recovery. Semiconductor companies, as well as their suppliers and independent distributors, say orders have been climbing moderately since the start of the year. The growth, however, parallels a similar, although less robust, rise in orders at this time last year. That rise expired by midsummer. As a result, many executives say they are wary of raising production rates too rapidly.

An article about the National Invitation Tournament in SportsMonday yesterday gave an incorrect schedule for the final evening of play, tomorrow at Madison Square Garden. There will only be a championship game. No consolation game is scheduled.

The Paradyne Corporation lost a fifth of its market value in heavy trading yesterday, after charges were filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday accusing the company of fraudulently obtaining a $100 million Government contract and of failing to make proper disclosures to shareholders. Paradyne, based in Largo, Fla., was the most actively traded issue on the New York Stock Exchange, closing for the day at 27 3/4, down 7 3/8, after trading as low as 25 5/8 earlier in the day. Trading had been halted all day Friday. The commission, in a civil complaint filed in United States District Court in Tampa, Fla., said Paradyne had obtained a contract to supply the Social Security Administration with a computer network by demonstrating fake models of its computers. The computer was actually a competitor's machine with Paradyne's name on it; a related device was ''nothing more than an empty box with blinking lights,'' the commission said.

SOMETHING sad and mysterious has been happening to the wild bighorn lambs that frisk among the scarps and crags of the Santa Rosa Mountains in southernmost California, 90 miles from Mexico. And local scientists and laymen have formed an organization to investigate. Since early February, bighorn ewes have been giving birth, as most do every year. Sixteen new lambs have been seen so far, and James R. DeForge, the strapping biologist who is executive director of the Desert Bighorn Research Institute, said wistfully the other day, ''At this stage, they always look good and healthy and playful.'' ''We see them running up and down the sides of the cliffs and, once in a while, butting their heads,'' he told an interviewer before setting out on a day's discreet scrambling around the lambing grounds. ''They're very agile even at this age.

''I spoke with the Mayor. We had a discussion. I indicated I would support the Mayor's choice, and in this case the Mayor's choice is Bobby Wagner.''

After four days of occasionally heated debate on the fighting in Nicaragua, the United States has become virtually isolated in the Security Council in its attempts to portray the conflict as an internal Nicaraguan affair. Allies like the Netherlands, Spain and Pakistan have indicated that they do not accept the United States' assessment of events. They have indirectly re- In Washington, officials declined to deny covert involvement, page A12. proached the United States for what they view as an American-backed effort to overthrow the Nicaraguan regime by supporting Hondurasbased exiles.

AREVOLUTION is taking place in the study of the cosmos. Theorists now believe it is possible that the entire observable universe evolved from a concentration of energy no more massive than a single apple. They have now concluded, too, that this entire universe may be embedded in another universe that is far larger but totally unobservable. Such concepts, although still regarded by some experts as improbable, appear to be replacing the ''big bang'' theory long favored by mainstream cosmologists. The new view proposes, essentially, that the universe was born from virtually nothing. Its substance and energy formed spontaneously during an initial period of expansion when, in the tiniest imaginable fraction of a second, the universe repeatedly doubled its size.

International An American arms control initiative was reported by Reagan Administration officials. They said the American negotiator at the talks in Geneva would propose to Soviet officials today that they agree on an interim solution as a step toward the elimination of all medium-range missiles in Europe. (Page A1, Column 6.) Washington is virtually isolated in a four-day-long debate in the United Nations Security Council because of its effort to portray the conflict in Nicaragua as an internal affair. (A1:4-5.)

Frank J. Macchiarola yesterday endorsed Deputy Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. to succeed him as Schools Chancellor of New York City. ''I support the Mayor's candidate,'' Mr. Macchiarola said at a news conference in answer to repeated questions by reporters. ''I spoke with the Mayor. We had a discussion. I indicated I would support the Mayor's choice, and in this case the Mayor's choice is Bobby Wagner.'' Mr. Macchiarola's statements ended days of speculation about what he would do, and marked a success for the Mayor. Mr. Koch had mounted an intense, personal lobbying campaign to get the former Chancellor to state his position publicly.

A Company News item in Business Day Saturday misstated the terms of Carl Marks & Company's proposed purchase of M.H. Lamston. Carl Marks has offered $34.50 a share, or $19.8 million in total, for Lamston's 574,436 shares outstanding.