What was going on when I was born?

A real estate article Friday on the proposed conversion of the Dunbar Apartments in Harlem to a cooperative incorrectly reported the position of the State Attorney General's Office. Because no conversion plan has been filed with the office, it has not taken a formal position.

Companies American Standard plans to acquire Trane for $512 million in Standard stock. The merger would unite two leading names in plumbing fixtures and air-conditioning equipment. (Page D1.) Honda Accord models built in Ohio are being accepted by buyers. Some dealers had anticipated that customers would only want those made in Japan. The cars are virtually the same. (D4.)

''What are you Americans doing here? What is everyone in the multinational force doing here - the Italians, the British, the French? You say you come to help us.

Cold in a warm hospital room, Stephen Lamb pulled his yellow blanket tighter around his emaciated body. ''My friends have abandoned me,'' Mr. Lamb said, his voice a tired whisper. ''They're afraid of AIDS. But instead of just saying that, they would promise and promise to come and see me and then not show up. That really hurt.'' Fighting a triple assault of cryptococcal meningitis, tuberculosis of the bone marrow and an intestinal infection, Mr. Lamb withered from 180 pounds to under 100. One of his few visitors at the New York University Medical Center was William Carroll, a man he barely knew.

For Melvyn I. Weiss, every corporate mishap is a new opportunity. Take the mess over the Washington Public Power Supply System. For bondholders, last July's $2.25 billion default has been an unmitigated horror, in which the paper they were holding dropped to a fraction of its former value. But for Mr. Weiss and others in the small circle of lawyers who specialize in securities class actions and shareholder derivative suits, the Washington Power debacle was a fertile area for litigation even before the default.

On Oct. 24, the last time the Giants met the St. Louis Cardinals, they played a 20-20 overtime tie in a game that will long be remembered for ineptness. Today, both teams outdid that performance, at least on offense, but this time there was a winner. The Cardinals won, 10-6, in a game that went into the record book not because of what happened on the field but because so few people showed up to watch it. The Giants distributed 76,745 tickets. But because of a driving rain and diminished interest in a game between two losing teams, only 25,156 spectators turned out at Giants Stadium.

The production capacity of the nation's steel industry is likely to shrink at least 10 percent over the next two or three years, analysts say. The first of a new wave of plant closings and write-offs, they predict, will be announced by the United States Steel Corporation later this month. In addition, the company resulting from the proposed merger of the Republic Steel Corporation and the LTV Corporation, the parent of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation, is expected to close several major facilities early next year. Industry analysts, steel company executives and even union officials say the industry will cut back to reduce costs and make domestic steel more competitive with lower-cost imports. The domestic industry is still operating at less than 60 percent of capacity, even though the economic recovery is a year old.

An article in Business Day Nov. 25 about the Getty Oil Company incorrectly reported when Gordon P. Getty became a director. It was in July 1976.

Bobby Brown and Yogi Berra, who began their major league careers with the Yankees in 1946, are headed for new jobs this week at baseball's annual winter meetings. Brown, an American League source said today, will be recommended at the owners' meeting on Thursday to be the next American League president. The source said there was no question that Brown would be approved as the successor to Lee MacPhail. By that time, Berra is expected to have replaced Billy Martin as manager of the Yankees. Telephone calls failed to reach George Steinbrenner, the Yankee owner, but the growing belief among the team's personnel was that the owner would make the official announcement of Berra's appointment after he arrives here Tuesday night.

Like most of her neighbors, Isabel Thabet was sleeping this morning when a United States Navy light bomber crashed into the house across the street and exploded. The plane was one of two shot down by Syrian antiaircraft fire as the United States carried out its first air raids in Lebanon. She ran to the front door and saw her sister-in-law's two-story house in flames, thick black smoke curling toward the sky. Several stone walls had been blown out and part of the roof had caved in.

The U.S. bombed Syrian targets in Lebanon as fighting there increased sharply. Two American carrier jets were shot down, and eight marines were reported to have been killed during an intense artillery attack by Syrian-backed militiamen. Sixth Fleet warships then opened fire on militia positions. The American air raid, which followed an Israeli air strike in the same area east of Beirut 24 hours earlier, was directed against Syrian antiaircraft batteries and involved 28 American fighter-bombers. (Page A1, Column 6.) The U.S. is prepared to strike again at Syrian positions in Lebanon, President Reagan warned, if American forces there are again attacked. Mr. Reagan was said by aides to have personally approved the bombing raid on Syrian antiaircraft batteries (A1:2.)

Governor Cuomo and Mayor Koch have agreed in principle on how to spend an estimated $1 billion surplus that the Municipal Assistance Corporation says it will be able to generate over the next five years, top city and state officials said yesterday. The officials said the agreement called for the Assistance Corporation to make the funds available to the city for three purposes: direct aid for the city's operating budget, support for city capital construction projects and investment in economic development. The key to the agreement came when Mayor Koch and Governor Cuomo agreed to modify their previous positions. Mayor Changes Bonds Stance The Mayor dropped his demand that M.A.C. funds be used in a fiscal plan to allow the city to pay off federally guaranteed city bonds by December 1984, according to senior city and state officials. On his part, the Governor explained to the Mayor that the state was not seeking continuing control over funds from the surplus that are to be channeled into economic development, the officials said.