What was going on when I was born?

Iraq attacked and hit a Turkish oil tanker today 50 miles south of the Iranian oil export terminal at Kharg Island. Fire engulfed the vessel and forced the crew to abandon ship, according to the official Iranian press agency. The Iraqi air raid on the Turkish vessel was the first confirmed attack on Persian Gulf shipping since May 24, when Iranian planes struck the Chemical Venture, a Liberian flag tanker sailing off the coast of Saudi Arabia. First reports of the Iraqi attack on the vessel, the Buyuk Hun, a 149,000- deadweight-ton tanker, were picked up in midmorning by monitors of a marine radio message in the Persian Gulf and, later, by the Iranian press agency. The reports were confirmed by shipping sources and diplomats in Abu Dhabi and by Turkish officials in Ankara.

In the final debate of the Presidential primary season, Walter F. Mondale and Gary Hart last night continued their pattern of criticizing President Reagan's policies but reserved their strongest denunciations for each other. The two Democratic candidates exchanged strongly worded condemnations of each other's campaign tactics in their four-month battle for the nomination. As in earlier debates, the Rev. Jesse Jackson tried to play peacemaker. But in this one-hour meeting, televised nationally from Los Angeles, Mr. Jackson found himself under sharp attack from the other candidates for his stand on United States relations with Israel. Disagreement on Mideast Mr. Mondale and Mr. Hart both spoke out strongly for continuing support of Israel after Mr. Jackson advocated closer ties with Arab nations and said that Israel's concern received an inordinate amount of attention in American politics.

The Indian Army began patrolling the violence-torn state of Punjab in an attempt to quell the two-year-old terrorist campaign by radical Sikhs demanding greater autonomy. The army took control of the security of the state on Saturday. Train and bus services were suspended, all traffic, even bicycles and animal-drawn carts, was banned, and a 36-hour curfew was imposed on almost the entire state. Despite this, terrorists killed 13 more people. (Page A1, Column 6.) Iraq attacked a Turkish oil tanker 50 miles south of Iran's Kharg Island oil export terminal. An Iraqi military spokesman said its aircraft struck ''two large naval targets'' in Iraq's unilaterally declared war zone near Kharg Island. There was no independent confirmation of a second successful strike. (A1:5.)

The fast break of the Los Angeles Lakers creates, as the forward Kurt Rambis aptly said, ''electricity.'' Today, it shocked the Boston Celtics. Playing before a rare sellout crowd at the Forum, the Lakers humbled the Celtics, rumbling to a 137-104 victory and taking a 2-1 lead in the four-of-seven-game championship series. The margin was the largest against the Celtics in any of their 16 appearances in the championship series. It also equaled the Celtics largest playoff defeat ever, which came in a loss to the Knicks in 1973.

A 117-foot British square-rigged ship racing from Bermuda to Halifax, Nova Scotia, was abandoned by her 28 crew members and passengers in heavy seas and was lost in the North Atlantic yesterday, the Coast Guard reported. One body was recovered, 18 people were missing and 9 others were rescued by ships and helicopters that combed tossing seas 78 nautical miles north of Bermuda for survivors of the graceful, three-masted tall ship, the Marques. ''They are searching for life rafts and people in the water, rather than the vessel,'' Johnny Ludlow, a spokesman for the Coast Guard's Atlantic headquarters in New York, said late in the day. The search continued last night with the use of flares and heat-sensing infrared detection equipment.

No sign identifies the site. No reference can be found on New York City's official street map. Ten years after it was formally unveiled, the very name of the Westway has evolved into a metaphor. President Reagan called it ''a code word for bureaucracy strangling in its own regulations.'' It has been elevated from a local dispute to a national environmental battle cry. As envisioned by city planners, the Westway would be a six-lane artery alternately above and beneath the Hudson River from the Battery to 43d Street, a replacement for the outmoded dream project of an earlier generation - the West Side Highway. Manhattan's shoreline would be shoved westward to create 169 acres of virgin land reserved for housing, recreation and commercial development.

Because of a transmission error, an article Saturday on the invasion of Normandy misspelled the name of one of the three beaches where the British Second Army landed. It was Juno Beach.

MONDAY, JUNE 4, 1984 Companies The expected sales boom in home computers has not happened, manufacturers and retailers say. They blame in part their failure to educate consumers on the machines' uses. (Page A1.) Commodore and Atari will offer more powerful models by Christmas. (D5.)

Investors can no longer buy common stock in the Virginia Electric and Power Company, although the public utility still sells securities and serves 1.5 million customers. To investors, the 59-year-old company is now Dominion Resources and its familiar stock symbol, VEL, has been replaced by the letter D. Nor can investors buy stock in the name of the Indianapolis Power and Light Company, the Florida Power and Light Company or the Tampa Electric Company. They are now, respectively, Ipalco Enterprises, the Florida Progress Corporation and the TECO Energy Corporation. Those changes are part of a growing trend among electric utilities to set up holding companies with different names to manage their new, nonutility businesses. Underlying the name changes, utility experts say, is a wish to signal Wall Street that the companies are no longer just in the business of selling electricity, largely a no-growth enterprise.

Audi, the luxury car division of Volkswagen, is trying to change the image of four- wheel-drive cars, from ungainly vehicles best suited for off-road use to sleek, sure-footed boulevard cruisers. The experiment is too new for an assessment of its success, but the attempt is an indication of how technology is replacing styling as the way to differentiate car models, particularly in the higher-priced end of the market. The Audi system has already prompted imitations in Europe and at least one American auto company, Chrysler, has four-wheel-drive models under development. Early this year Audi introduced its 4000 Quattro model in the United States. It resembles the older 4000S model on the outside, but all four wheels are power-driven, instead of the usual two.

Stubbornly high coffee prices, which threaten to disrupt the stability of the world market, have forced the 73-nation International Coffee Organization to call a special meeting of its executive board today in London. Since mid-December, the group has been unable to keep prices within the agreed range of $1.20 to $1.40 a pound. In recent weeks, coffee for July delivery on the Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange in New York has climbed as high as $1.5842 a pound, the highest price in at least four years. On Friday, the coffee organization released an extra one million bags onto the market. That was the fourth and final such increase in supply it is allowed under its rules. If prices do not stay down, the group faces the possibility of suspending its quota system and allowing a free market in coffee.

The Government today suspended transportation and clamped a 36-hour curfew over most of Punjab state in an effort to quell violence by radical Sikhs agitating for greater autonomy. Soldiers began patrolling the state's cities and towns. Despite the takeover of security in Punjab by the Indian Army on Saturday, Sikh terrorists killed 13 more people throughout the state, bringing the death toll to 88 since the latest violence in the Punjab began nearly two weeks ago. In all nearly 550 Punjab residents have died in killings related to the Sikh campaign, which began in August 1982.