What was going on when I was born?

It seems like a natural combination of high technology and high finance: the trading of stocks and the monitoring of their performance by home computer. So far, however, computer owners have been slow to bite. Several discount brokerage firms and data base companies that are marketing these stock services to individuals for their home computers say that sales have been below expectations. And one discounter, Texas Securities Inc., has already stopped offering an at-home execution feature that let home computer operators enter orders to buy and sell shares with just a few keystrokes - and no phone call to a broker.

Voter registration drives this year have added millions of new names to the rolls, according to election officials. As a result, they say, a steady 20- year decline in the percentage of people of voting age who turn out for Presidential elections may be reversed Nov. 6. A spot check of 30 states indicates that registrations in most states are up substantially over 1980 and the public and private groups that conducted the drives are working to get the newly registered to the polls on Election Day, a week from Tuesday. Totals Must Await Election Because of the complex decentralized system of registration in which no running national totals are kept, the approximate number of new registrants will not be known until after the election. But nonpartisan officials and experts have been able to make preliminary assessments of what appeared to be by far the most extensive effort in American history to increase voter participation.

The chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said yesterday that he would seek to set up a magnetic fare-card system in the city's subways over the next four years. The chairman, Robert R. Kiley, said he would ask the M.T.A.'s board of directors to approve the $40.8 million plan before the end of the year. Under the plan, devised by Arthur D. Little Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., the M.T.A. would first issue credit-card- sized passes to the agency's employees and to students, many of whom ride free. If that worked well, the program would be expanded, Mr. Kiley said.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1984 International A cut in oil production by all 13 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was recommended by the group's oil markets committee to prop up sagging prices. The key committee also urged the group to address some basic problems in its oil price structure. But the proposals, to be be considered in an emergency OPEC meeting in Geneva today, were dealt a setback when Nigeria refused to cut its oil production or raise its discounted price. (Page A1, Column 6.) An economic crisis in Israel has come to preoccupy the nation more than any immediate military threat for the first time since its founding in 1948. The crisis, economists say, arises not only from military burdens but also from the structure of Israel's political system, the economic restraints of Zionism, and years of living beyond the nation's means. (A1:2-3.)

An article in Business Day on Wednesday about the Beatrice Companies misstated the ownership of a beer importer. The company, All Brand Importers Inc., is 51 percent owned by Nabisco Brands Inc. and 49 percent by Whitbread Holdings Inc.

A $12.3 million New York City effort to reduce the size of first- grade classes to an average of 25 pupils this fall has succeeded in only a handful of districts, according to teachers and administrators. Those districts that have met the goal, set in an agreement among Mayor Koch, the City Council, the Board of Estimate and the Board of Education, did so at the expense of other programs, their officials say. The financing, a result of last spring's negotiations over the city budget, has led to small reductions in first-grade class sizes throughout the city. But school officials acknowledge that they have not met their own goal of bringing first grades - where most children learn to read and often need individual attention - down to a district average of 25 students in each of the 32 community school districts. ''Reduced first-grade class size was something everybody agreed to,'' said Stanley Litow, an official of the Educational Priorities Panel, a civic group of parents and educational organizations. ''The reality is that though it got reduced, it didn't happen in the dramatic way everybody expected.'' He and other critics blamed top school officials, saying that the officials sent mixed signals to community school districts and handled budget negotiations last spring in an unsophisticated fashion. Schools Chancellor Nathan Quinones cited a number of factors, including lack of space for more classrooms in some districts and a larger number of first graders than expected.

Federal regulators have been arguing for more than a decade about whether Detroit should be forced to equip its new cars with air bags, which inflate automatically in a crash to protect passengers. But recently, a small group of trial lawyers from around the nation has quietly developed a new strategy that they hope will move the air bag question out of the regulatory agencies and into the courts. Their approach is novel, and no court has yet ruled in their favor - to the contrary, one Federal court has ruled against them - so it is impossible to gauge their eventual success. But they are grounding their argument in well-established legal theories, and if they win some cases, they could put serious pressure on auto manufacturers by winning substantial damages for their clients.

The New York City Marathon, normally a celebration of life, suffered its first death yesterday. Jacques Bussereau, a French runner, collapsed in Queens about 14 miles into the race and was taken by ambulance to City Hospital Center in Elmhurst. He died an hour later of cardiac arrest. According to Police Sgt. Peter Ruane, Bussereau collapsed at 1:10 P.M., 2 hours 25 minutes after the start, at 44th Drive and Hunter Street and was alive when he reached the hospital. He died in the emergency room at about 2:10.

It was just before bedtime when Diane Galuski began flipping the dial on the television set, searching for something to lull her to sleep. Several flips later, she found herself watching a show she couldn't, she wouldn't, believe. No need to adjust the hue control; on this channel, the screen flickered with nonstop flesh tones. ''The hair on my arms was standing on end,'' said Mrs. Galuski the other day, recalling that night last November. ''There it was. Nudity. Naked bodies. Sex. On television.''

Worried that a new wave of failures of savings and loan institutions could exhaust the Government fund that insures their deposits, the chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board says the agency is likely to propose new limits on the growth of thrift units. The chairman, Edwin J. Gray, who for some months has privately expressed anxiety about the adequacy of the fund, disclosed his thinking about remedial actions on the eve of the annual conference of the United States League of Savings Institutions, the industry's leading trade group. The meeting formally opens Monday. In an interview Friday, Mr. Gray said that hundreds of thrift institutions are growing at such a ''dizzying pace'' that the failure of even a few could eventually overwhelm the resources of the insurance fund.

For the first time since the founding of the Israeli state in 1948, an economic crisis, much more than any immediate military threat, has come to preoccupy the nation. ''Before, they used to say that every Israeli had to be a general,'' said Yaacov Fisher, senior economist at the Bank of Israel. ''Now they say that every Israeli has to be an economist.'' The crisis, economists say, has been produced partly by excessive military burdens but also by the peculiar structure of Israel's political system, the economic restraints of Zionism, years of living beyond the nation's means and sheer mismanagement by some of its governments. A Different Israel to Emerge The Israel that emerges from the crisis, the analysts here contend, will be a different place, with a lower standard of living for its citizens, a lower military budget, some very high unemployment or a combination of the three. It will also be an Israel that is much more dependent on foreign creditors, in particular the United States.

The key committee of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries tonight recommended that the 13-member group cut oil production to prop up sagging prices. It also urged the group to address basic problems in its oil- price structure. The recommendations came on the eve of an emergency meeting that will try to deal with the lowering of oil prices by four countries: Norway, Britain, Canada and Nigeria, an OPEC member. But the proposals, to be considered Monday, were dealt a setback when the group's maverick member, Nigeria, today refused to cut its production or raise its discounted price. Oversupply and Cheating Moreover, staff members of OPEC said privately that many of the oil ministers were under pressure from their governments to keep production - and thus revenues - high. And oil analysts in New York were skeptical about the organization's ability to keep prices from falling in the face of oversupply and widespread violations among the group's members of their agreed-upon prices and production levels.