What was going on when I was born?

When Mayor Koch killed the proposed New York City theater ticket tax, it came as no great surprise to Peter A. Piscitelli. ''We lobbied it good,'' Mr. Piscitelli said yesterday, the day after the Mayor offered a municipal budget without the tax. His old friends in city government, he said, had not told him in advance in so many words that the tax he was working against was out. ''But they'd smile when you talked with them,'' Mr. Piscitelli said, ''and they'd say, 'Hey, you might have a winner.' '' He had no trouble reading signs like that. He knows the game and he knows the players.

The International Trade Commission recommended today that President Reagan place quotas on specialty steel imports for three years to protect American manufacturers. The unanimous decision by the three commissioners puts pressure on the President to help the domestic industry, which makes such products as stainless steel and other special alloys. But he is not bound by law to do what the commission recommends.

APROLIFERATION of electronic gadgetry - including advanced stereo systems, television sets that rise on command and computerized lighting - made its presence felt in both traditional and contemporary rooms at the Decorator Show House of the Kips Bay Boys' Club, which opened to the public yesterday. But, as in many marriages of convenience, the relationship between decorating and technology is often uneasy. In some cases the two are learning to live together nicely; in others the honeymoon may already be over. One thing, however, seems certain: Elaborate and costly electronic hardware is here to stay, and many of the 19 designers in this year's event are trying to make the best of it. ''I think that this is the area in which things are happening,'' said Harvey Herman, who designed a plush, pale-hued living room in the 1903 Stanford White mansion on Fifth Avenue at 79th Street. The room is focused on a bleached-oak cabinet housing a brass-finished wireless-remote-control stereo system by Audio Design Associates.

The principal owner of a small laser company that could benefit from President Reagan's program to develop a futuristic missile defense system has given or offered company stock now valued at millions of dollars to leading scientific and military experts and others with connections to the Reagan Administration, according to public records and company officials. The recipients of the stock include Edward Teller, the physicist and a member of the White House Science Council, who helped persuade Mr. Reagan to adopt the plan, and Robert Keith Gray, a public relations executive with close ties to the Reagan family. William E. Simon, a former Secretary of the Treasury and an outside adviser to the President, has been offered stock at a bargain price. Former high military leaders, who are not associated with the President, are also connected with this small company, Helionetics. One is Adm. Thomas B. Hayward, who retired last summer as Chief of Naval Operations.

Because of an editing error, a listing of the members of the National Commission on Exellence in Education yesterday incorrectly identified the chairman, David Pierpont Gardner. He is president-elect of the University of California system.

International President Reagan exhorted Congress to back his program of military and economic assistance to El Salvador and other countries in Central America. In an unusual address to a joint session of Congress, Mr. Reagan asserted that the present turmoil in the region posed a threat comparable to what the United States faced in Europe after World War II when President Truman sought aid for Greece and Turkey. (Page A1, Column 6.) The Democrats' response to President Reagan's address was made by Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut. Terming the Administration's insistence on military aid to Central America ''a formula for failure,'' he urged in its stead economic aid to relieve ''the factors which breed revolution,'' and said the United States should work for negotiated settlements in the region. (A1:4-5.)

Senator Christopher J. Dodd, responding on behalf of Congressional Democrats to President Reagan's address tonight on Central America, called the Administration's insistence on military aid to the region ''a formula for failure.'' The Connecticut Democrat urged in its stead economic aid to relieve ''the factors which breed revolution,'' and said the United States should use its power and influence to end hostilities in both El Salvador and Nicaragua and work for political settlements. ''We must make violent revolution preventable by making peaceful revolution possible,'' he said. 10-Minute Televised Speech In one passage, he spoke of the victims of terror he had seen during a visit to El Salvador. He said much of the terror had been inflicted by Government forces, using United States weapons.

''What the administration is asking for on behalf of freedom in Central America is so small, so minimal -considering what is at stake.

After listening to nearly two hours of criticism from demonstrators at a public meeting yesterday, members of the New York City Board of Education deliberated privately but failed to reach a decision on the selection of a new Schools Chancellor. The board, whose first choice, Deputy Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr., was rejected by the State Education Commissioner, is divided on how to proceed, board officials said. Reports of Leading Candidate The Education Commissioner, Gordon M. Ambach, said last Friday that Mr. Wagner's background was not strong enough to warrant a waiver of official state requirements for the job. After meeting in private for three hours, the board recessed until 8:30 this morning. Officials filed out a side door of the board's headquarters at 110 Livingston Street in Brooklyn while about 50 protesters stayed in the main auditorium, chanting ''We shall not be moved'' and ''All fired up, can't take no more.''

FROM the outside, neither of the buildings is exceptional. They are the sorts of places where collegians have always lived - utilitarian and a little disheveled. Brent Sherwood lives in New Haven, a few blocks from the Yale University campus, in a one-family home built in 1840 and long since converted into apartments. An unused fireplace is in the hallway. Wallpaper is on some walls, paint on others. Each of the six or seven mailboxes bears layers of masking tape, scribbled over with the names of the apartment's residents for semesters past. Peter Moore lives on Riverside Drive, a couple of blocks west of the Columbia University campus, in a mansion built in 1904 as a fraternity house. Vines finger its stone walls. Inside on a recent night, most of the residents were sitting in the dark, only candles illuminating some sort of initiation ritual. What separates Mr. Sherwood and Mr. Moore from their fellow students and their surroundings from more typical ones is that, as graduate students in architecture, they have brought the muse to bear in designing their own apartments.

Twenty-eight subway stations will get face lifts, 196 subway cars will get air conditioning, New York City will get two new bus depots and riders will get fare cards instead of tokens, according to plans released yesterday by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The M.T.A. board expects to approve the program at a meeting tomorrow despite some questions about how the $821 million to pay for these and other improvements will be raised. Nearly half the money for the program is expected to come from the 5-cent-a-gallon increase in the Federal gasoline tax that took effect April 1. But a struggle among different regions of the nation has raised questions about just how much New York will get.

It is becoming harder and harder to tell the difference between video games and home computers. For the first time, manufacturers of both kinds of machines are angling for the same customers, and they have rushed to make their products more alike. Analysts view the new competition, which has become more pronounced in the past month, as another broad and somewhat unexpected change in the confusing contour of the home electronics market. ''This has always been a fast-moving industry,'' said Clive Smith, an analyst with the Yankee Group in Boston. ''But things are moving so fast that companies cannot keep up. What is marketed today may well be obsolete in a few months. It is impossible to create a coherent marketing strategy under such conditions.''