Used to do a bit of paper tape for cnc machines waaaaay back. If I recall the spacing is .10 " so that would make your tape about 8 ft long. The smaller hole (I seem to recall that it is offset from the center so there are 3on one side and 5 on the other side of it so to know which side of the tape goes against the reader) was used for moving the tape thru the reader or the punch. Blank tape would already have this hole.
If this is just a one time read of the tape see if there is a local machine shop that still has a cnc with a tape reader or a stand alone punch reader. I used to have a bunch of teletypes that could read the tape or punch the tape as you typed. I still have a bridgeport cnc that can read the tape. The cnc usually has an rs232 port also so the program that is read can also be sent out.
If you are reading a bunch of these tapes then maybe look for a used reader or a generous cnc machine shop owner. I did see that when this was a commom storage medium that there were homemade ones made because the readers were expensive at the time.
kevindorner:
If it checks for the last letter not to be the same as the read one, it will ignore the repeated characters in the program.
Not a good idea if indeed there was a repeated character.
Where are you located? Maybe someone is close by that knows a cnc shop.