Some thoughts for you on this:

1) I do sincerely hope you managed to at least see a widescreen, colour presentation later on, even if it was on a TV.

2) If you were watching in 1983, the chances are it was one of the shortened prints from the truncated re-releases that were in circulation back then (it wasn’t properly restored until 1989, having been cut from 222 minutes to 200 minutes immediately afterwards, and then from 1970 onwards cut down even further to about 190 minutes).

3) I myself first experienced another David Lean classic in the manner you describe, ie panned and scanned on a black and white television: Doctor Zhivago. I have since seen it in colour, in widescreen, and — finally years later — on a cinema rerelease. Here are my thoughts on the experience in more detail.

Thank you very much for reading and commenting! :)