Hullo, there is no difference with orientation - a landscape machine is just a portrait machine that you can only use the top half of!
The main problem is the one you've mentioned - getting adequate drop for the counterweights. You can use a pulley systems to get a bit more drop if necessary (http://www.polargraph.co.uk/2014/10/huge-portland-design-week-project/). The second problem is margins - there's always a margin at the top of a machine where you'll struggle to get the pen to move to reliably - given the catastrophic nature of dropping steps during a drawing, it's something to be afraid of.
The actual margin is a function of the width of the machine and the holding torque of the motors - so the wider the machine is, the larger this top margin is, and the smaller your actual drawable area is. If you had a machine that was 8m wide, you wouldn't be able to use the top 800mm of it, which if it was only 1500mm high, that'd be a problem.
happy scribbling 🙂
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