What was going on when I was born?

The Navy announced today that it had lifted a ban on signing new contracts with the General Dynamics Corporation, bringing five months of penalties against the company to a close. By ending the moratorium on new work at the company's Electric Boat division in Groton, Conn., and Pomona arms factory in Los Angeles, the Navy signaled a return to normal business after one of the most tumultuous disputes over weapon costs in the Pentagon's history. ''There was no pattern of corruption - they were simply doing what our regulations allowed them to do,'' said Everett Pyatt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Shipbuilding and Logistics, of General Dynamics' disputed contract charges. The charges were determined to be improper by Congressional investigators and Pentagon auditors.

International A tail fin was found 80 miles from the mountainside where a Japan Air Lines jumbo jet crashed Monday with 524 people aboard. The tail fin's separation from the fuselage was regarded by aviation experts as important in trying to determine why the jet crashed. Four passengers survived. The loss of life was the highest in a single plane crash in aviation history. [Page A1, Column 6.] The home of Winnie Mandela and an adjacent clinic she runs in a black township in South Africa were badly burned in a fire. Mrs. Mandela, wife of the jailed nationalist leader Nelson Mandela, charged that the fire was set by the ''security branch directed by the Government in Pretoria'' in an effort to undermine the outlawed African National Congress, which her husband led. The police raided her home a week ago, after firing rubber bullets and using whips to break up a demonstration outside. [A1:3.] An impeachment move was defeated by allies of President Ferdinand E. Marcos of the Philippines. A parliamentary panel rejected an opposition motion charging him with graft and corruption, violating the Constitution and other crimes. [A9:1.] National The computer-based safety system at the Union Carbide plant in Institute, W. Va., was not programmed to predict the path of the toxic gas that leaked Sunday, causing 135 injuries. Union Carbide acknowledged this after the system's manufacturer charged that a series of omissions by the Union Carbide staff was responsible for its apparent failure.

The computer in the safety system installed earlier this year at the Union Carbide plant in Institute, W.Va., was not programmed to predict the path of the particular toxic gas that leaked Sunday, causing 135 injuries. Union Carbide acknowledged the omission after the manufacturer of the computer system, Safer Emergency Systems Inc., charged early yesterday that Union Carbide's failure to provide critical data to programmers designing the system was at least partly responsible for the inability of the system to warn plant operators that the gas cloud would drift over the town. It was not immediately clear to what degree the omission, which made it impossible for the computer to draw an accurate map of the plume, contributed to the 36-minute delay in the sounding of a public warning siren. Union Carbide officials said yesterday that the leak may indicate a need to change piping and valve systems at chemical plants throughout the country. Experts agreed that undersized pipes could increase the risk that fumes would escape into the atmosphere. [Page A19.] ''The computer worked exactly the way it was supposed to,'' Gary Gelinas, president of Safer, said in an interview from his office in Westlake, Calif., yesterday.

Final approval for the construction of a huge incinerator at the old Brooklyn Navy Yard, the first stage of the largest new public works project undertaken by the city in years, will be considered tomorrow by the Board of Estimate. The plan, which has divided environmental groups and is opposed by neighbors of the Navy Yard, would transform before the year 2000 the way the city disposes its more than 22,000 tons of municipal waste a day. The issue has divided the board in the past, but supporters said yesterday that they were confident it would pass. Under the plan, garbage now trucked and barged to remote landfills would be taken to a network of neighborhood incinerators where it would be burned and converted to steam or electricity for commercial users.

FIVE years ago, if you wanted to taste a farmhouse cheese you pretty much had to make it yourself or buy a European import. Suddenly, all that has changed. American farmhouse cheeses, meaning cheeses made on the farm where the dairy herd is raised, are increasingly available in specialty cheese shops and at farmers' markets, and often by mail order from the farmers themselves. While they are not exactly taking over from the presliced, prepackaged, plastic-wrapped products that continue to be the favorites of many Americans, they are delighting the palates of cheese purists. ''The pendulum is starting to swing back again,'' said Liz Biss, a co-owner of the Cheese Shop in Ithaca, N.Y., and past president of the American Cheese Society. ''These cheeses are handmade products. People are beginning to realize that when you mass-produce cheese you take a lot of its charm, its individuality, away.'' The farmhouse cheeses come in all shapes and sizes, from little hearts of white goat cheese ripened in a sooty dusting of wood ash to great straw-colored wheels of cow's milk cheddar, aged two years or more, with a deep, rich flavor. Many of these cheeses recall European equivalents, such as Camembert, Gouda, Cantal and the whole range of fresh or briefly aged goat cheeses that come under the heading of chevre.

Three Democratic candidates for Brooklyn Borough President yesterday challenged the incumbent, Howard Golden, over his acceptance of large campaign donations from real-estate developers and the timing of announcements of several real-estate developments in the borough. Mr. Golden countered that his opponents were jealous of his fund raising, and he questioned the propriety of money transferred from other committees to the campaign committees of two of his opponents. ''We're fighting hard to attract major business and office and industrial development to Brooklyn,'' State Senator Martin Markowitz, one of the three challengers, said during a debate at The New York Times among the four candidates. ''The wrong signal to give out,'' Mr. Markowitz said, ''is that in order to do business in Brooklyn, you've got to do business with the Brooklyn Democratic Party and the Brooklyn borough presidency.''

Rescue workers continued today searching through the wreckage of a Japan Air Lines jumbo jet on a mountainside in central Japan, and a navy ship reported Tuesday finding part of the plane's tail in the sea 80 miles from the crash site. A second piece of wreckage was found nearby later. The separation of the tail fin from the aircraft was regarded by aviation experts as important in trying to determine why the jet crashed Monday evening with 524 people aboard. In midafternoon, search teams recovered the voice recorder and flight recorder of the plane in a valley below the mountain into which the plane crashed. Information on those recorders may explain what caused the disaster, the worst ever involving a single plane.

WHEN Aubrey and Harriet Moss get the urge to eat out, as they do about three times a week, they often consult their current and back issues of The Restaurant Reporter, a newsletter devoted to reviews of New York City restaurants. ''Their taste is somewhat similar to ours,'' said Mr. Moss, a businessman who lives in Oradell, N.J., and usually travels into the city in search of a fine meal. ''What they like, we like, and the style of writing is fun.'' Mr. Moss is one of a growing number of people who are turning to restaurant newsletters and other guides that offer highly personal, idiosyncratic restaurant reviews, and only restaurant reviews. Although they vary in their formats and in the types of information they offer, these are small businesses that provide a steady, if unspectacular income to their owners. They generally operate with low overhead, sometimes in shared space or in the owner's home, and are often a sideline to another business. For the most part, they are labors of love that, through their distinctive voices, seek to give readers something that cannot be gleaned from newspaper or magazine reviews, or from full-length books.

A typical day on the floor of the Bombay stock exchange: About 2,000 frantic, sweating brokers are packed into an immense, sweltering room. They are pushing and shoving each other and everyone seems to be screaming. This exuberant roar can be heard blocks away. It is the sound of India's latest flirtation with capitalism, and while most financial people are delighted by it, some are worried. Prompted by the biggest burst of optimism ever to hit the Indian business community, the Bombay stock exchange is having a boom unlike anything since the country's independence in 1947. The ''teji,'' or bull, has completely vanquished the ''mandi,'' or bear.

An article on the Style page on Saturday about rape trauma syndrome misnamed the author of the book ''The Ultimate Violation.'' She is Judith Rowland, not Patricia Rowland.

Hospitals in New York State will be required as of Jan. 1 to ask families for organ donations whenever a patient dies. The rule is the result of a new state law that is intended to increase the availability of scarce organs for transplants by taking the onus off doctors and hospital administrators who are reluctant to intrude on a family's grief. Hospitals will soon be given a series of guidelines telling them how to comply with the regulation, State Health Department officials said yesterday. Requirement in Oregon Legislative sponsors of the rule said the state had had a chronic shortage of hearts, livers and kidneys for transplantation.

A Federal judge yesterday struck down the state law providing for runoff elections in New York City primaries, declaring that it unconstitutionally discriminated against minority voters and candidates. The city and state said they would appeal the decision, which would bar possible runoffs in the city's Democratic primary for Mayor, City Council President and Comptroller on Sept. 10. The decision is expected to have little practical effect on this year's primary, according to political analysts. They said the need for a runoff seemed unlikely, with the possible exception of the crowded race for City Council President.