Front panels

The front panel I want to build is for my DPS8-M (aka Honeywell 6180) emulator. http://8bitaficionado.com/2010/09/22/multics-honeywell-6180-mainframe-panel… (Now it's a pretty big panel, so I'm thinking 1/4 scale.) I'm mostly interested in the lights; having functional switches would be nice, but not critical. (My background: good grasp of basic digital electronics; did some wirewrap boards back in the early eighties. Poor soldering skills, no workshop. Mad software skillz.) I would like to build it reasonably cheaply. So I would start with a simple SBC; Beaglebone or the like, that can function as a USB device. I can write the S/W to push a bunch of bits down to it. What I don't know how to do is drive 500 or so LEDs. I am guessing a bunch of shift registers, but I've pretty much reached my design limits. I need some guidance on locating and understanding the technology to run that many LEDs. TIA, -- Charles