June 27, 1986

With the modern world becoming more amd more dependent on computers and the flow of information, few industries have looked more promising in recent years than telecommunications. So promising, in fact, that the ITT Corporation decided several years ago to cast off many of its diverse businesses in order to concentrate on its telecommunications roots. But the promise turned into an illusion for ITT, which used to be called the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation. It quickly found that, despite its long history in the field, competitive pressures and the rapid change of technology had become too overwhelming. Now, in what would be a dramatic turnabout, ITT is said to be on the verge of selling the controlling interest in its core telecommunications operations.

Federal bank regulators have begun an examination to determine whether a loan made by the Interfirst Corporation, the troubled Texas bank holding company, to one of its directors may have violated banking laws, a regulatory source said yesterday. There is no indication that the $80 million loan, to Edwin L. Cox Jr., a wealthy Texas rancher and director of Interfirst's lead bank in Dallas, was improper, the source, who asked not to be named, said. But according to the source, officials from the three principal bank regulatory agencies - the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Reserve - met in Washington yesterday specifically to begin reviewing whether the loan to Mr. Cox fulfilled Federal law regarding the extension of credit to directors.

IT is the season of the charm bracelet and the Chippendale chest, the sock and the socket wrench, the Queen Anne table and the Kewpie doll, of gold and lapis, glitter and felt, fishhooks and diadems, grandfather clocks and porcelain dolls, thimbles and goblets, treasures and trinkets, treadles and trivets, gimcracks, jewels and gems. It is the time when merchants flock outdoors, transforming meadows and soccer fields and parking lots throughout the metropolitan region into bustling markets of quality antiques, middling wares and humble junk. Caravans of cars and vans drive up, tailgates go down and, in a consumerist version of Noah's Ark, out comes examples of every kind of object ever made in factories or by the hand of man. With a little help from the sun, a whole weekend outing can be enjoyed. At a flea market near the Jersey Shore, you can rummage through bins for vintage Benny Goodman disks, then dash to the beach. At an antiques fair in Great Barrington, Mass., in the Berkshire Mountains, you can browse through Hudson River School paintings by day, and catch a play at the nearby Berkshire Theater Festival at night. There are flea markets and antiques fairs within shouting distance of New York City where, besides the lure of the bins and the bargains, you can walk through pine woods, see a rodeo, ride a roller coaster or take a day sail.

College entrance examinations taken in New York would be studied question by question for racial or sex bias under legislation expected to pass both houses of the Legislature. The bill, which has bipartisan support and is scheduled for votes Friday, would establish a commission to analyze how different groups perform on the standardized tests, which are primarily designed and administered by the Educational Testing Service of Lawrenceville, N.J. According to the bill's sponsors, Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, Republican of Port Jefferson, L.I., and Assemblyman Arthur O. Eve, a Buffalo Democrat, such a study would be the first by a state legislature and would help shape the debate about whether the tests are unfair to certain population groups. ''This will enable us to see whether there is any validity to those allegations,'' said Mr. LaValle, the chairman of the Senate Higher Education Committee. ''Also, the establishment of the study group, in and of itself, should bring about a greater sensitivity in the testing industry.''

The Times Mirror Company agreed yesterday to sell The Dallas Times Herald for $110 million in cash and notes, in an apparent acknowledgement that it was unable to win the heated Dallas newspaper war. The buyer is the Media News Group, a privately held company based in Woodbury, N.J. that is headed by Willian Dean Singleton, a 34-year-old Texan. Media News and Mr. Singleton's other company, Garden State Newspapers Inc., own 21 daily newspapers and 15 weeklies in six states between them. ''This is the jewel of our group,'' Mr. Singleton said. ''We made the acquisition for the newspaper. We are not land developers.'' Newspaper executives in Texas had speculated that Mr. Singleton's company might close The Times Herald and sell its assets, according to an industry source.