September 11, 1983

Ray Perkins made a successful debut as a college football head coach today when his Alabama team methodically beat Georgia Tech, 20-7. Thus, Alabama's Ray Perkins era oficially began, and the Paul (Bear) Bryant era more or less ended. In 38 years, Bryant won 323 games, more than any other college head coach. Last December, when Bryant retired after 25 highly successful seasons at Alabama, he picked Perkins to succeed him. The announcement came with three games remaining in Perkins's fourth season as head coach of the Giants. Six weeks after the announcement, the 69-year-old Bryant died.

IT was the spring of 1980 when Donald E. Petersen, the newly named president of the Ford Motor Company, visited the corporate styling center to have a look at clay models of cars proposed for the future. Noticing that the designers there seemed a bit glum about what was in store for the next few years, Mr. Petersen asked if they really liked what they were presenting. The answer was no, and the upshot was a decision shortly thereafter by Mr. Petersen and the new chairman and chief executive officer, Phillip Caldwell, to loosen the reins that Ford executives had held on designers for years - perhaps permanently altering the way automobiles go from concept to finished product in Detroit. Since that time, designers at the No. 2 auto maker have been allowed to develop ideas without worrying too much about the whims of their bosses. Out of that freedom has come the smooth, uncluttered, sleekly aerodynamic look of Ford's new models, a sharp departure from the square, formal appearance of its older cars - and from everyone else's designs, too.

When it was built in 1923, the Midston House, at the corner of 38th Street and Madison Avenue, was conceived as a club-style hotel, with much of its space devoted to lounges and public rooms. But in a major renovation in the early 1960's the lounge space was converted into a street-level restaurant and the coffee shop was expanded.

In what was simply a study in domination, Martina Navratilova, the most successful female tennis player over the last two years, reaffirmed her claim as the world's best by thrashing Chris Evert Lloyd yesterday to win her first United States Open championship. The scores were 6-1, 6-3 in a final that lasted just 63 minutes. It was a convincing performance that awed not only the 20,819 sun- drenched fans at the National Tennis Center, but also Mrs. Lloyd, the defending champion. ''I think this was one of the matches where I was beaten the worst,'' Mrs. Lloyd said.

DICK has 10 computer programs and Jane has none. If Dick buys one more program and lends it to Jane to copy, how much software should Jane now have? The answer has less to do with mathematical ability than with ethics, and the question - in this case involving possible copyright infringement - is similar to many spawned by the proliferation of personal computers. According to area teachers who gathered recently for a training course in computers, such ethical - as opposed to computational - concerns are not stressed in primary and secondary schools that have been quick to join in the computer revolution. Often, they suggested, that neglect stems from pressures exerted by parents and by industry. The teachers were in Yorktown Heights earlier this month, at the campus of the Putnam/Northern Westchester Board of Cooperative Educational Services, for the final training phase of a new, $8 million, yearlong computer literacy program financed by the International Business Machines Corporation.