What was going on when I was born?

Stephen Wohl browsed at the personal computer show at Madison Square Garden, wandering past floppy-disk jigsaw puzzles, binary watches, core memory embedded in Lucite, a video tutorial on crap shooting, computer graphic greeting cards and a booth featuring a popular video game, ''Attack of the Mutant Camels.'' A fellow browser asked if Mr. Wohl was shopping for anything special. ''Yes,'' replied the Queens businessman. ''I'm looking for a 20-megabyte RAM with hard disks, a 68,000 CPU system, high-res graphics, at least 640 by 400 pixels, and tablet input. Preferably I want three-dimensional graphics with plotter output and a Unix operating system.''

Interest rates rose sharply in the first quarter, as the economy expanded briskly and many investors withdrew from the bond market, recalling that recent episodes of rapid growth have led to higher interest rates, lower bond prices and more inflation. Concern that the Federal Reserve was tightening monetary policy has aggravated the upturn in rates, but many analysts agreed that the fundamental upward movement of rates that they see continuing into 1985 is beyond the Fed's control. ''The person who will determine interest rates is the consumer, not Paul Volcker,'' said Richard B. Hoey, chief economist at A. G. Becker Paribas. Although he expects Mr. Volcker, the Federal Reserve Board's Chairman, to continue following an anti-inflationary monetary policy, Mr. Hoey said the central bank would continue to respond to economic developments, rather than actively leading interest rates up or down.

The three major candidates for the Democratic Presidential nomination opened a joint appearance in Manhattan yesterday with pledges of mutual respect, but almost immediately fell back into their running feud over foreign policy and campaign tactics. Some of the sharpest differences emerged over the endorsements by Walter F. Mondale and Senator Gary Hart of a proposal to move the United States Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In a one-hour appearance on a WNBC-TV news program broadcast in the metropolitan area, Mr. Mondale accused Mr. Hart of flip-flopping on the issue. The third candidate, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, accused both men of giving the embassy issue unwarranted importance. In an earlier television appearance yesterday, he said this amounted to a ''patronizing'' and ''pandering'' approach to Jewish voters.

A 43-year-old mystery - what happened to the reading copy of the famous speech that President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered to a joint session of Congress on Dec. 8, 1941 - has finally been solved. In the speech, Roosevelt called the previous day, when Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor, ''a date which will live in infamy'' and asked Congress to recognize that a state of war existed between Japan and the United States. But when he left the podium in the chamber of the House of Representatives, he left behind on the lectern his reading copy of the speech. When he returned to the White House, the President asked his son James, who was an aide, ''Where is the speech?'' His son replied, ''I don't know.''

Dr. N. John Hall spends two or three days a week in the Bronx and much of the rest of his time in the 19th century. As an English professor at Bronx Community College, Dr. Hall shows students how to identify sentence fragments and introduces them to such writers as Hemingway and Chekhov. In his research, he peruses Anthony Trollope's novels for precisely rendered glimpses of Victorian life. Dr. Hall's scholarship is the sort frequently associated with professors at research universities, but less often with those at two-year community colleges. Little in his research relates directly to his classes at the college, where a course on Trollope is considered too esoteric to offer.

The question of whether to move the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is an issue that appears to have caused considerably less excitement in Israel than in the American Presidential campaign. Israeli officials are approaching the issue with extreme caution and are wary of making any comments that could be construed as interference in American politics. They have limited themselves to formal policy statements that Jerusalem is their capital and the logical place for any embassy. (Page A1, Column 5.) Israeli artillery units fired on positions in the Syrian-held territory in the Bekaa region of eastern Lebanon. It was the first such shelling in months. A cease-fire was generally holding in Beirut, where there was only sporadic shooting. (A3:1.)

The $500 million rescue of Argentina that was completed this weekend represents a watershed in the three-year imbroglio over the onerous debts of the developing world, many international financial experts say. The terms and the dialogue have changed. For the first time, fellow debtors - in this case four of Argentina's Latin American neighbors - joined in the rescue, demonstrating their solidarity in a common cause. At the same time, banks set the easiest payment terms ever for such a loan.

Two bills recently passed by the tax-writing committees of the House and the Senate are commanding significant changes in business and investment activity - even though the measures have yet to become law. Many of the provisions have been written to be retroactive. Thus, businesses and investors are forced to adhere to the proposed changes now, or risk adverse tax consequences if the bills eventually are enacted into law. Nearly half the provisions in the House Ways and Means package are retroactive to March 31 or earlier, for example.

The issue of whether the United States Embassy should be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem appears to have stimulated considerably less excitement in Israel than it has in the American Presidential campaign. With Congress considering a bill that would require the move, President Reagan threatening a veto and the two leading Democratic candidates advocating the shift, Israeli officials are approaching the subject with caution. Wary of making comments that could be construed as interference in American politics, they have limited themselves to policy statements that Jerusalem, as their capital, is the logical place for an embassy to be. The Israeli Position ''We do think that the fact that embassies in Israel are not positioned in Jerusalem, but outside Jerusalem, that this fact is an anomaly,'' Dan Meridor, the Cabinet Secretary, said today. ''Our position is that Jerusalem, being a capital and the united city, is the normal place for an embassy and not a consulate.''

Steve Young made his professional debut for the Los Angeles Express an encouraging one today. He completed 19 of 29 passes for 163 yards and at times ran the offense as if he had been a part of it for years. But the more experienced of the opposing quarterbacks made the difference, as Brian Sipe, a professional since 1972, led the Generals to a 26-10 victory, their fifth in six games. After six games last season, the Generals were 1-5. The Express fell to 2-4.

A caption Saturday under a front- page picture with an article about a Federal racketeering indictment incorrectly identified the man escorting Paul Castellano, one of the suspects. He was Kenneth McCabe, a detective from the Brooklyn District Attorney's office squad.

''By including the other Latin Americans in this, we have at least paid lip service that the debt situation is really political.