What was going on when I was born?

In the days of tail fins and bumper-to-bumper chrome, Detroit's auto makers did not worry about speedometers that were hard to read or control knobs that were hard to reach. But they are worrying now. In the late 1970's, foreign competitors upstaged the three major auto companies in both design and performance. So today Detroit's automotive styling studios are designing interiors in the image of imported models. Chrome and fake wood are on their way out. Nonreflective surfaces and a high- tech look are in. That is not all. The car companies have been asking themselves basic questions about the way they lay out dashboards, which they prefer to call ''instrument panels.'' Are digital speedometers better than conventional ones? Should horn buttons be placed on steering wheels or on turn- signal levers? What is the best place for the headlight and windshield- wiper controls? Do knobs or sliding switches make the best heater controls? Does it make sense to mount the radio or heater controls vertically instead of horizontally?

A group of some of the largest banks in the New York area said yesterday that they had joined in a three- state network that will allow millions of customers to use automated teller machines of any member bank. Known as the New York Cash Exchange, or N.Y.C.E., the system initially permits customers of five New York banks - Chemical Bank, the Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company, Marine Midland Bank, The Bank of New York and Barclays Bank of New York - as well as the Union Trust Company, based in Stamford, Conn., to make cash withdrawals and balance inquiries at any of the group's automated teller machines. For customers of those banks, the service is available today. The National Westminster Bank U.S.A. and Goldome customers will gain access to the network within the next few weeks. More than 75 other banks in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, including the Chase Manhattan Bank, have signed letters of intent to join the group, said Leonard E. Malkin, a vice president at Manufacturers Hanover who serves as chairman of N.Y.C.E. All banks in the region are permitted to join, he added.

A new report by a private group asserts that over the last three years, rebels from one of the organizations seeking to overthrow the Nicaraguan Government have engaged in a pattern of attacks and atrocities against civilian targets. A preliminary draft copy, made available here, gives details of 28 incidents that it says ''have resulted in assassination, torture, rape, kidnapping and mutilation of civilians.'' Four of the 28 incidents were chosen at random and witnesses were independently interviewed by The New York Times. These interviews seemed to verify some of the details in the report. The new report, prepared by a three- member team headed by Reed Brody, a former New York State Assistant Attorney General, is based on interviews conducted in Nicaragua between September 1984 and January 1985. It is to be officially released in Washington on Thursday.

The Reagan Administration told Congress today that Israel had failed so far to make enough progress in its economic recovery plan for the United States to meet its request for a major increase in economic aid. Facing a House subcomittee that was virtually unanimous in advocating approval of the $2.6 billion sought by Israel in new funds, the State Department's senior economic official said the new money would be wasted. He said it would ''disappear quickly'' because of Israel's failure to cope adequately with budgetary and fiscal problems. Israel received $1.2 billion in economic aid and $1.4 billion in military aid for the 1985 fiscal year, which began last Oct. 1. It has asked, said W. Allen Wallis, Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, for $800 million as a supplemental economic grant for 1985 and $1.8 billion in economic aid for the 1986 fiscal year.

The weapons envisioned for President Reagan's defensive shield against ballistic missile attack could be used with devastating effect offensively, according to many supporters and critics of Mr. Reagan's program. The President's Strategic Defense Initiative, known popularly as ''Star Wars,'' would not use weapons of mass destruction, like the current nuclear arsenals, that could obliterate tens of millions of people, the experts agree. But the same experts, in government, industry and the universities, say the proposed defensive system, if it is actually built and deployed at full strength, could serve several major offensive functions, including these: - It could be used as a defensive adjunct to an offensive nuclear attack, allowing nuclear-armed missiles to be launched in an offensive strike while the defense is held in reserve to cope with any retaliatory strike, according to arms-control experts. - It could attack and destroy enemy space satellites, which are generally far easier targets than the ballistic missiles the system would be designed to intercept, according to experts assembled by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. Satellites have become an increasingly important part of the military systems of the United States and the Soviet Union.

The Federal Reserve's chairman, Paul A. Volcker, suggested today that some type of fresh, coordinated action by governments would be desirable to reduce gyrations in the currency markets. Although Mr. Volcker did not outline such a plan and did not indicate he favored any immediate steps, he was understtood to be referring to intervention by central banks. European central banks have intervened heavily on occasion since late February. The United States, by contrast, has made small sales of dollars as a token contribution to the effort because the Reagan Administration is philosophically opposed to intervention.

President Reagan vetoed emergency farm credit legislation today, saying the measure was a ''massive new bailout that would add billions to the deficit.'' In his first major confrontation with Congress over the budget since the start of his second term, the President essentially triumphed over a coalition of Democrats and farm-state legislators. Soon after Mr. Reagan's veto, the Speaker of the House, Thomas P. O'Neill Jr., conceded that there were not enough votes in the House or Senate to override the veto. In sharply worded remarks in the Oval Office, Mr. Reagan said: ''The bottom line is that someone in Washington must be responsible. Someone must be willing to stand up for those who pay America's bills, and someone must stand up to those who say here's the key, there's the Treasury, just take as many of those hard-earned tax dollars as you want.''

ALL the caulking, weatherstripping and insulating of the energy-conscious 70's has had an unintended and unhealthy effect: air pollution in homes. As outside air is kept out, household pollutants are sealed in. Cigarette smoke, paint odors, insecticide sprays, animal hairs, airborne asbestos fibers, mildew, oven fumes, even air-fresheners collect in the air. Tests have linked them to everything from coughs to an increased risk of cancer. Though researchers have been investigating outdoor pollution for decades and pollution in offices and public buildings for at least 10 years, only recently has air pollution in homes commanded significant attention. Experts estimate that people spend as much as 90 percent of their time indoors, much of it in their homes, and they are beginning to look at home pollution more closely. The Consumer Federation of America, a consumer-advocacy group, has called the problem its ''No. 1 health and safety issue of the year.'' The American Lung Association has begun a national education program to alert people to it. A Federal interagency task force has been established so that groups such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Department of Energy and the Department of Health and Human Services can pool information and resources.

'' And now that I've vetoed this bill, I hope that Congress will get the message and work with me to reduce spending in a responsible way that does not threaten our national security.

Voting is expected to be close today as shareholders decide whether to approve National Intergroup Inc.'s bold and contested plan to merge into the Bergen Brunswig Corporation. The plan is bold because National Intergroup is proposing the merger at market values with no premium to entice its shareholders to sell. The payoff for them will come in the future, National Intergroup says, because the merger will effect a major strategic redirection into high-growth businesses, with a lessening of its dependence on the depressed steel industry. The Leucadia Corporation, which holds 7.2 percent of National Intergroup stock, is leading the battle against the merger, asserting that National Intergroup is giving the company away at a price far less than its breakup value.

A former lawyer has testified before a State Senate Committee that he participated in the bribery of several judges and in other irregularities to win medical malpractice and negligence cases in New York City courts from 1979 to 1982. The former lawyer, Spencer Lader, who pleaded guilty to grand larceny charges in Brooklyn two years ago, said he had cooperated with other lawyers in illegal and questionable practices to ''manufacture'' cases and to obtain larger settlements or awards in authentic suits. During the three-year period, Mr. Lader said, he never appeared in court to handle a case but obtained about $1.5 million in fees from law firms to which he improperly sold about 100 cases. Most of the cases were in Brooklyn but some were in Queens and Manhattan civil courts, he noted.

THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 1985 International Israel has failed to progress in its economic recovery plan, according to the Reagan Administration. As a result, it told Congress, the $2.6 billion sought by Israel in new American aid would be wasted and ''quickly disappear'' because of Israel's failure to date to cope with budgetry and fiscal problems. (Page A1, Column 1.) President Reagan won pledges of bipartisan support from Congressional leaders before sending his negotiators to a new round of arms control talks in Geneva. (A1:5.)